California made good on Gavin Newsom’s promise to use a Texas anti-abortion law as a model for his ongoing efforts to bankrupt gun sellers and manufacturers. California’s Firearms Industry Responsibility Act, allows individual citizens to sue firearm makers and retailers while claiming harm from firearm ads, “gun violence.” It’s a clear attempt to sidestep the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act and subject companies involved in the firearms business to punishing litigation.
The NSSF has sued to block the law and issued this statement . . .
NSSF, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, filed a challenge to California’s unconstitutional firearm industry liability law, AB 1594, that was passed last year and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The law encourages civil suits against the firearm industry for the damages caused by the criminal actions of remote third parties. This law is an affront to the U.S. Constitution and abuses the judicial system in an attempt to circumvent the will of the U.S. Congress when it passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). The law goes into effect July 23.
NSSF filed NSSF v. Bonta in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. NSSF will seek a preliminary injunction to halt enforcement of the unconstitutional law as the challenge progresses through the courts.
“California’s General Assembly and Governor Newsom made a spectacle of defying the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision when this bill was passed and enacted,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “This law is openly hostile to the firearm industry and also defiant to Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Constitution. Governor Newsom’s angst toward the foundations of America’s freedoms exceeds the borders of his state and his law attempts to exert California’s radical gun control agenda across the United States. NSSF will defend our Constitutionally-protected industry against the broadsides of this extremist agenda.”
NSSF’s challenge explains that AB 1594, misleadingly titled the “Firearm Industry Responsibility Act,” is a law that was drafted prior to the Bruen decision and signed just weeks after the Supreme Court published the landmark ruling. Rather than re-examining the legislation to ensure it complied with Supreme Court precedent, Gov. Newsom forged ahead, challenging the ruling when he signed it.
The law bans the manufacture, sale and marketing of firearms the state deems “abnormally dangerous” regardless if they are commonly-owned. It also encourages civil lawsuits by a person who has suffered harm in California, the Attorney General, or city or county attorneys against a firearm industry member for the harm caused by the criminal misuse of a firearm by a remote third party. This is expressly prohibited by PLCAA. The law unconstitutionally invades the sovereignty of sister states by directly regulating lawful commerce occurring entirely and wholly outside the state of California in violation of the Commerce Clause and our system of federalism.
Further, the law not only infringes on Second Amendment rights but chills First Amendment rights by restricting protected free-speech advertising of Constitutionally-protected products that are lawfully made and sold – even when that advertising takes place outside of California’s borders.
California’s AB 1594 is clearly unconstitutional on several fronts. The law is an affront to the U.S. Constitution and rights that belong to the People. It is nothing less than an unlawful attempt to abuse the courts to achieve “legislation through litigation.”
Kind of redundant, but whatever. I wonder what took them so long. The strongest evidence against the law includes statements by Noisome himself suggesting that the law was no more constitutional that the Texas law he was protesting.
OK, as I understand it (and I am *not* a lawyer), we cannot attack that thing in court until someone uses it to sue and wins, is that correct? (IE, having legal ‘standing)
We have to suffer tangible ‘damages’ before we can counter-sue to get it declared unconstitutional?
Or did I pick the wrong day to quit main-lining heroin? 🙂
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So, are they going to sue Ford or Toyota if some nutcase drives into the next gay pride parade?
Or Chicago Cutlery for the next drug addled street creep stabbing a small business owner?
Can they sue big pharma for opiate addictions/overdoses?
If you are going to allow encourage lawfare, nuisance lawsuits, then lets go all in and spread the love.
“So, are they going to sue Ford or Toyota if some nutcase drives into the next gay pride parade?”
For how many decades did people sue cigarette companies for causing lung cancer?
Literally *decades*. They were laughed out of court.
And then one day… 🙁
I believe they were sued because they actually lied and said their products did not cause cancer. In that case, it was not deceptive advertising
Waiting for a precedent case.
“Waiting for a precedent case.”
It may require financially supporting businesses being sued, for however long it takes, via crowdfunding.
Will the 2A community be willing to do so?
No.
The bigger conundrum for them is going to be what to do when some deplorable sues Ford or Toyota when a brown-skinned genderless more-equal crashes its car into a Trump rally, or sues Nike when one wears their shoes in the act of murdering the children of doody-heads at a private Christian school, that footwear making them more effective at running from victim to victim to murder them.
Then, what to do? The freak eunuch that they programmed to commit those murders will have been doing exactly what their sponsored “news” networks told them to do, and now an innocent company with a high ESG score is going to be caught in the legal crossfire.
That simply won’t do.
They never think this stuff through.
Well, considering that the globalists want us “little people” out of our cars and walking within fifteen minute cities, that would be all the ammunition they needed to ban cars and trucks-as well as our guns. Except for people like Newsome and Bloomberg, of course.
The Gun Companies are Idiots. They Saw what’s happening and Didn’t do anything. If A Group of them Got Together and come out with an Agreement to Boycott the state. The Largest companies Will have a Huge Impact on the state. No Gun or Ammo sales to ANYONE in California, Including Especially LEO’s. Trickle it down to ALL Retailers Prohibiting sales to Calif. Where are they gonna get Ammo? Being a gov’t entity doesn’t grant you Exclusive rights for sales by a company. If these Companies start standing up for their rights and use the Power of Boycotts for an Entire state.
If you think that Newsom would find that to be a problem, I have a bridge in San Francisco I can sell you. You do realize that Nevada is right next door, right? If the state cannot stop the iron pipeline, what makes you think mere citizens will be able to stop semis full of guns and ammunition that have Highway Patrol of State Police escorts?
Lawfare, designed to bankrupt the 2nd Amendment defenders. When the law is overturned Newsome and his fellow communist traitors will just enact something worse. The battle will never end until the traitors are eliminated, permanently.
“The battle will never end until the traitors are eliminated, permanently.”
We’re not *quite* there yet.
One option is for the SCotUS to rule that suing a weapons company can only be done if there is clear culpability.
Think along the lines of the publishing industry. Their protection is very broad, to the point that someone can legally sell a copy of ‘The Anarchist’s Cookbook’, that literally describes how to make improvised explosives designed to maim and kill :
https://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-William-Powell/dp/0962303208
Gun companies deserve equal legal protection, considering they manufacture items necessary for the exercise of an enumerated (the 2A) civil right…
I know. It was more rhetorical than practical.
“Geoff, that’s already part of the PLCAA.”
And the PLCAA is a law, one that the Leftists have sworn to get repealed.
You can bet your ass the moment they one day regain control of all 3 houses, they will do exactly that… 🙁
“One option is for the SCotUS to rule that suing a weapons company can only be done if there is clear culpability.”
Geoff, that’s already part of the PLCAA.
And why didn’t you laugh at my hair joke yesterday? Jeesh. I thought it was pretty funny. Not all that erudite, but funny.
Stuff blows right over my head all the time… 🙂
Redflag and safe storage laws loving NSSF is showing up from Fuddlandistan as the cavalry to save the 2A? Industry donks? how many knives must we pull out of our backs before we stop giving them any credit for the real work of protecting ALL of our RKBA?
Larry Keane can stuff it for all that it matters.
Paul Clement (probably the best appellate attorney in the country; argued and shepherded Bruen) is on this case. That’s good.
Case has been assigned to Judge Andrew G. Schoplel . . a Biden appointee. That’s not.
https://mail.google.com/
Piece by piece. Law enforcement is being dismantled in the state of California. Perhaps they will also ban horse mounted police officers???
“California bill would ban police dogs from arrests, crowd control; cites racial bias, trauma”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-bill-would-ban-police-dogs-arrests-crowd-control-citing-racial-bias-trauma
Unless and until the PCLAA is repealed, Gruesome’s Law might get State Court support, but it will be struck down higher up.
Even the Sandy Hook Suit against Remington held up in Lower Courts, would have been shut down at some point at the Federal Level. Remington was in the middle of Receivership, and the various Insurance Companies just chose to offer a settlement rather than fight the Lawsuit all the way to SCOTUS. They m looked at how much it would cost to fight the suit v how much the plaintiffs would settle for, and the former had a lot higher $ than the latter.
Most of the settlement went to legal fees, so the plaintiffs got peanuts.
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