Explore The NRA Universe Of Websites

APPEARS IN News

PLCAA Ruling Exposes Weak Arguments for Gun Industry Liability

Monday, August 5, 2024

PLCAA Ruling Exposes Weak Arguments for Gun Industry Liability

As part of the war against the Second Amendment, the Biden-Harris Administration has made no secret of its antipathy to responsible gun owners and the firearm industry. Under the guise of “common sense” gun control, President Biden has made repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) a “top priority,” claiming, incorrectly, that the legislation gives gun dealers and manufacturers complete and unique immunity from lawsuits. In the meantime, the Biden-Harris Administration has pledged to collaborate with state legislators and Attorneys General on strategies for enacting and employing state liability laws to undermine the PLCAA, including using “generally applicable state consumer protection and nuisance laws to take action against gun manufacturers and gun dealers.”   

One such state-level effort to bypass the PLCAA, the Illinois Firearms Industry Responsibility Act (2023), was used by the City of Chicago and Bloomberg’s gun control group Everytown to file a lawsuit against Glock, Inc., seeking to hold the gunmaker responsible for harms caused by criminals illegally installing auto sears on Glock handguns. The House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability is now investigating “potential collusion” between the Administration (specifically, the White House Office on Gun Violence Prevention, “overseen by Vice President Harris”), the City of Chicago, and Everytown and other “anti-Second Amendment plaintiffs” in the litigation.

A different civil case which sought to bypass the PLCAA was recently dismissed. In Lowy v. Daniel Defense, LLC et al., Civil Action No. 1:23-cv-1338 (E.D. Va. July 24, 2024), a federal court in Virginia granted the motion of all 15 defendants, including Daniel Defense, LLC; Centurion Arms, LLC; Magpul Industries Corp., Federal Cartridge Company, and others, to dismiss the case outright.

The case arose out of a shooting at a District of Columbia school in which the plaintiffs were injured, perpetrated by a 23-year-old man who committed suicide shortly after. The complaint, framed in negligence and Virginia consumer protection/false advertising statutes, alleged that the defendant manufacturers “have deceptively and unfairly marketed their assault rifles, rifle accessories, and ammunition in ways designed to appeal to the impulsive, risk-taking tendencies of civilian adolescent and post-adolescent males,” and rested on alleged links between the “perverse and pervasive marketing by Defendants and the gun industry at large” and the “idolized self-sufficient warrior mentality” that a “certain subset of youths” develop, that supposedly results in mass shootings. “Upon information and belief,” the plaintiffs claimed the assailant was one of the youths influenced by these marketing practices and that he relied on the defendants’ advertisements in purchasing his weapons in Virginia.

Court filings by defendant Daniel Defense noted that, independent of the PLCAA, dismissal was warranted because, as a threshold matter, there was no “factually plausible or legally cognizable connection” between it and the harm the plaintiffs suffered. “Every link in Plaintiffs’ paper chain of causation is based on mere possibility. Did the Assailant ever see a single Daniel Defense communication? Plaintiffs only speculate. Assuming he saw one, what impact, if any, did it have on him? Again, Plaintiffs only speculate. Assuming he purchased a Daniel Defense product as a result of seeing such a communication, Plaintiffs are still left with no way to cross the chasm between that purchase” and the assailant’s acts. “Instead of factual allegations, or even factual grounds for suspicion, Plaintiffs reply upon nothing more than layer upon layer of assumption and speculation." Another defendant, FAB Defense, Inc., argued that the plaintiffs failed to specifically allege that any of its products were actually used by the assailant.

These threshold issues of standing and failure to state a claim, as well as the PLCAA, were all factors in Judge Claude M. Hilton’s decision to dismiss the suit.

The alleged chain of causation relied on the assailant, an unrelated third party not before the court, “to link defendants to plaintiffs’ injuries. Accordingly, to establish standing against defendants, plaintiffs must allege that defendants’ conduct had a determinative or coercive effect upon Shooter’s actions.” However, “no factual allegations in the complaint support the conclusion that Shooter relied on defendants’ marketing,” or that the marketing had a “determinative or coercive effect” on his subsequent criminal acts. The complaint “does no more than speculate that Shooter, like other young men in Virginia, observed defendants’ advertisements.” With just this to go on, the plaintiffs’ claims failed to rise above the speculative level and “can proceed no further.”

Even had the plaintiffs surmounted these threshold matters, the PLCAA blocked their lawsuit. That law contains various exceptions “to ensure that it does not insulate firearm companies against lawsuits resulting from their unlawful behavior,” but in this case, “the defendants qualify for the PLCAA’s protections, and plaintiffs fail to invoke the Act’s exceptions.”

One of the exceptions is the so-called “predicate exception,” as it relies on actions in which a manufacturer or seller of a qualified product knowingly violated a state or federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product (the “predicate” law), and the violation was a proximate cause of the harm underlying the suit. In Virginia, the “proximate cause of an event is that act or omission which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient intervening cause, produces the event, and without which that event would not have occurred.”

The same lack of a causational link that doomed the threshold issues also foreclosed the application of the predicate exception. The assailant’s independent and voluntary criminal acts broke the chain of proximate causation. Even assuming that the plaintiffs adequately alleged violations of the Virginia consumer protection/false advertising statutes (“which the court does not decide”), they failed to adequately allege those violations proximately caused their injuries.

Nothing in the ruling diminishes the tragedy of the horrific event that gave rise to the lawsuit; however, the law (with and without the PLCAA) nonetheless obligated the plaintiffs to show that the manufacturers’ conduct had the necessary causal link to the assailant’s attack.

The case illustrates the insubstantial arguments being used to make the gun industry legally responsible for the acts of third party criminals. Defendant Daniel Defense described the lawsuit’s approach to liability as a “remarkable theory,” relying on “conclusory and generalized accusations that fall short of alleging any interaction between Daniel Defense and the Assailant.”

If flimsy arguments, speculation and guesswork can carry the day, one could argue that the District of Columbia – a jurisdiction that gun-control group Giffords describes as having “some of the strongest gun violence prevention legislation in the nation” – is theoretically as liable for the assailant’s crimes, because its extreme gun control laws give citizens the deceptive and unfair illusion of public safety. The pleadings in the case disclosed that, although the assailant’s (semiautomatic) firearms and ammunition had been legally purchased in Virginia, he had illegally transported the guns into the District and illegally converted the firearms into automatic weapons (which are prohibited in D.C.).

Rulings like these are critically important. Responsible Americans are now acquiring firearms at historically unprecedented rates. The objective of undermining and repealing the PLCAA is to make that impossible, by bankrupting the gun industry with company-killing litigation costs and extraordinary liability for third-party criminal misuse of lawful (and constitutionally protected) products. Without the ability to acquire arms, the right to keep and bear arms becomes meaningless.

Vice President Harris (now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee) has shown herself to be at least as hostile to gun rights as Joe Biden. If the Biden-Harris reformation of gun laws succeeds, it signals dark days ahead for American citizens and their Second Amendment rights.

TRENDING NOW
Baltimore Gets Serious on Crime Control, and the Results Speak for Themselves

News  

Monday, July 14, 2025

Baltimore Gets Serious on Crime Control, and the Results Speak for Themselves

As the mid-year mark of 2025 hits, a promising report on crime trends has come out of the City of Baltimore. Surprising news at first glance until you dig deeper into the policy direction the ...

U.K. Moves to Legally De-suppress Suppressors

News  

Monday, July 14, 2025

U.K. Moves to Legally De-suppress Suppressors

On July 4th, President Donald Trump signed into law his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which included a provision that eliminated the tax stamp fee of $200, but did not deregulate suppressors under the National Firearms ...

President Trump Supports Hunting and Resource Protection with Executive Actions

News  

Monday, July 14, 2025

President Trump Supports Hunting and Resource Protection with Executive Actions

Just as the United States was preparing to celebrate 249 beautiful years, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on July 3rd establishing the “Make America Beautiful Again" Commission supporting hunters, outdoorsmen, and outdoor recreationists by prioritizing the ...

Legacy Media Finally Acknowledges Politization of Public Health

News  

Monday, July 14, 2025

Legacy Media Finally Acknowledges Politization of Public Health

It appears the editors of The Atlantic are finally willing to entertain an idea that has long been obvious to gun rights supporters.

House Annual Appropriations Process Update

News  

Monday, July 14, 2025

House Annual Appropriations Process Update

As the House Appropriations Committee is putting together legislation to fund the government, NRA-ILA has worked closely with policy makers to ensure several long-standing priorities for gun owners were included in the underlying bills.

U.S. House Passes Reconciliation Bill, Removing Suppressors from the National Firearms Act

News  

Second Amendment  

Thursday, May 22, 2025

U.S. House Passes Reconciliation Bill, Removing Suppressors from the National Firearms Act

Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.1 the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included Section 2 of the Hearing Protection Act, completely removing suppressors from the National Firearms Act (NFA).

DOJ Declines to Seek Supreme Court Review of Decision Striking Down Federal Laws Prohibiting FFLs From Selling Handguns to 18-to-20-Year-Olds

Thursday, July 10, 2025

DOJ Declines to Seek Supreme Court Review of Decision Striking Down Federal Laws Prohibiting FFLs From Selling Handguns to 18-to-20-Year-Olds

In Reese v. ATF, the Fifth Circuit held that 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(b)(1) and (c)(1)—which together forbid Federal Firearms Licensees from selling handguns to 18-to-20-year-olds—violate the Second Amendment.

NRA-ILA July 2025 Litigation Update

Thursday, July 10, 2025

NRA-ILA July 2025 Litigation Update

In the second quarter of 2025, the National Rifle Association filed two cert petitions in the U.S. Supreme Court and five amicus briefs, while continuing to litigate dozens of ongoing lawsuits across the country.

Florida: Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday Signed by Governor

Monday, July 7, 2025

Florida: Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday Signed by Governor

Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed the Florida Budget for Fiscal Year 2025–2026, which includes a Second Amendment sales tax holiday from September 8 through December 31, 2025. The NRA is thankful for Governor DeSantis’ strong ...

Maine: Lawmakers Call for Anti-2A Progressive Professor to Be Fired

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Maine: Lawmakers Call for Anti-2A Progressive Professor to Be Fired

In case you missed the media firestorm last week, a progressive professor at Eastern Maine Community College in Bangor, Maine, has come under fire for her emails belittling a student for her religious beliefs and views ...

MORE TRENDING +
LESS TRENDING -

More Like This From Around The NRA

NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.