Gun Industry Protection Bill ‘Halfway Home’
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
“Halfway home” is how gun rights supporters and the firearms industry reacted to the July 29 passage in the United States Senate of legislation that will put an end to what critics call “predatory lawsuits” against gunmakers and retailers.
On a 65-31 vote that brought out some of the worst in Capitol Hill anti-gunners, the Senate passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (S-397). Last year, the measure died in that chamber when it was encumbered by a number of anti-gun amendments.
This time around, only one significant amendment was attached that brought disdain from some quarters in the gun rights community, but most sources called it so trivial that it will have no negligible effect. The amendment requires gun dealers to provide gun locks at the time a new or used handgun is purchased. There is no requirement that the gun locks be subsequently used by consumers.
Companion legislation in the House (HR-800) has more than 255 co-sponsors and could pass quickly when Congress returns from its August recess on Sept. 6. Some observers believe the House will not accept the gun lock amendment which is on the Senate bill.
President Bush has already promised he would sign the legislation when it reaches his desk.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), called passage of the bill a “good first step” toward what he called “sensible reform of this country’s tort laws.”
“The Senate has acted responsibly in an effort to stop frivolous legal actions that have been mounted over the past few years by anti-gun rights politicians to deliberately bankrupt legitimate firearms manufacturers,” said Gottlieb. “These legal actions, backed by extremists in the gun control lobby, have no other purpose than to financially devastate the gun industry, and opponents of this legislation know it.”
“These lawsuits put thousands of jobs at risk and attempted to drive an entire industry out of business. Such abuse of our judicial system invited this historic legal reform,” said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF).
Doug Painter, president of NSSF, added, “This legislation restores and reaffirms the common-sense notion that no manufacturer should be held liable for the criminal misuse of its products. We are pleased that the Senate has passed this important reform measure. No industry should be threatened by ‘junk’ lawsuits based not on established legal principles but driven by extreme political agendas.”
Chris Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), called the vote “a huge victory for the NRA.”
“While the fight is not yet over,” Cox said in a statement, “I am optimistic the House of Representatives will quickly follow suit when it returns from its August recess and send the bill to President Bush for his expected signature.”
However, Kristen Rand with the anti-gun Violence Policy Center (VPC) was not so cheerful, asserting that the bill “is built on a corrupt foundation of lies that will leave a legacy of pain and suffering.”
Rand also said the vote “is a go-ahead by the US Senate for a reckless, cynical, unregulated industry to sell their increasingly lethal products at tremendous cost to the general public.”
The effort to pass the bill got a boost from the White House, which issued a statement on July 26 urging the passage of a “clean bill” with no amendments. The Defense Department also sent a letter to the Senate saying preservation of the firearms industry was critical to national security.
“Any amendment that would delay enactment of the bill beyond this year is unacceptable,” the White House said. “The manufacturer or seller of a legal, non-defective product should not be held liable for the criminal or unlawful misuse of that product by others. The possibility of imposing liability on an entire industry for harm that is solely caused by others is an abuse of the legal system, erodes public confidence in our nation’s laws, threatens the diminution of a basic constitutional right and civil liberty, sets a poor precedent for other lawful industries, will cause loss of jobs, and burdens interstate and foreign commerce.”
Although addition of an amendment to mandate the sale of locking devices with each handgun raised the hackles of some hardcore gun activists, some of whom believed it also mandates that these locks be used by gunowners, that’s not the case, Gottlieb said. What this amendment really does, he observed, is add another layer of liability protection for retailers if they simply sell or give a lock away with each handgun they sell.
Democrats tried and lost attempts to insert special provisions in the legislation that would let children and police retain the right to sue, along with another amendment that would have let individuals but not municipalities retain the right to sue. Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D-MA) attempt to saddle the bill with an amendment expanding the definition of so-called cop killer bullets was defeated.
Kennedy (D-MA) claimed that the legislation is nothing more than political payback to the so-called “gun lobby.” He repeatedly called the bill “a national disgrace” during debate.
Contrary to what Kennedy and others intimated during the debate, the bill will not provide blanket immunity from all legal actions. Gunmakers and dealers are still vulnerable to lawsuits based on product defect, negligence or breach of contract issues.
“What we have crafted is a very narrow kind of exemption from predatory lawsuits,” said Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), the bill’s author. “It is intended to stop these kinds of abusive lawsuits.”
The NRA said in a statement that its victory “would not have been possible without support from senators from both sides of the aisle.”
Beside support from Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO), who had been a gun control advocate as a state senator, West Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller voted for final passage. (Click to see roll call vote.)
Byrd “has heard from many hundreds of his constituents about this issue over the course of the past year,” Tom Gavin, his spokesman, told wire services. “In West Virginia, hunting and guns are part of the culture, part of the heritage of the state. Many fear the impact on that heritage that lawsuits that threaten the viability of the gun industry in America might have.”
The legislation was prompted by more than 30 municipal lawsuits filed since 1998, seeking reimbursement from gunmakers for the costs of gun violence. Many of those lawsuits have been thrown out or won by the industry defendants. Two have been withdrawn. Others are still making their way through the courts, but if this legislation becomes law, those lawsuits would be nullified.
Thirty states have passed similar laws.
“Gunmakers and law-abiding gun dealers should not be held responsible for unforeseen criminal acts committed by third parties,” Gottlieb said. “In an industry that is already highly regulated, in which the end consumer cannot even legally purchase a firearm without first passing a background check, allowing these predatory lawsuits to continue unabated not only threatens the health of the industry, but the rights of law-abiding citizens to buy the firearms they are constitutionally guaranteed to keep and bear.”
Grassroots support from gunowners and outdoor industry leaders was crucial in the passage of S-397, according to the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF).
“Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation partners National Shooting Sports Foundation and National Rifle Association can be credited with generating thousands of phone calls, letters and emails to the offices of senators urging the passage of the bill. The individual contacts from each congressional district made such an impact that they were cited in the Senate floor debates on the legislation,” the CSF said in a press release.
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