After 25 years of legal wrangling, a lawsuit described as “the most consequential legal case against the gun industry in this country” appears to have met its end – but the industry isn’t out of the legal woods just yet.
Back in 1999, the city of Gary, Indiana, filed a lawsuit attempting to hold firearm manufacturers responsible for failing to prevent illegal gun sales. On March 15, 2024, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a law aimed at extinguishing the suit.
As a legal scholar who has followed the case since it was first filed, I believe that the now all-but-certain dismissal of this lawsuit represents a major setback for gun control advocates.
But it won’t stop other states from trying to use civil litigation to rein in the gun industry. To understand why, let’s take a closer look at how Gary’s lawsuit lasted so long in the Indiana courts, and how state lawmakers finally gunned it down.
Blaming gunmakers for illegal retail sales
In September 1999, Gary sued 11 leading handgun manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Glock and Ruger. The suit alleged that a small group of gun stores was responsible for a large amount of illegal gun sales in the state.
The lawsuit further claimed that the gun manufacturers “intentionally ignored” these illegal practices to boost their profits, and so served as “knowing accomplices.”
Gary’s lawsuit demanded that the gunmakers compensate the city for the costs of emergency services, policing, lost tax revenues and lower property values caused by gun violence. Gary also asked the court to issue an order requiring the manufacturers to take reasonable measures to reduce the risk of illegal sales — for example, by cutting off the supply of weapons to gun stores with a record of illegal sales.
In 2001, a state trial court dismissed Gary’s lawsuit, but the city successfully appealed to the Indiana Supreme Court, which, in 2003, sent the case back to the lower court for trial.
The gun industry’s federal immunity shield
In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA, which prohibits lawsuits against firearm manufacturers and sellers for injuries arising out of criminal misuse of a gun. Armed with this new federal immunity shield, the gunmakers in the Gary lawsuit moved to dismiss the case a second time.
However, both the trial court and an appellate court refused to dismiss the case. The appellate court explained in a 2007 opinion that the federal immunity shield didn’t apply to Gary’s case.
Although sweeping, PLCAA immunity doesn’t protect a manufacturer or seller who “knowingly violated a state or federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing” of a firearm. The court reasoned that because the gunmakers had served as knowing accomplices to the violation of state and federal laws governing the sale of firearms, PLCAA immunity didn’t protect them.
The Indiana Supreme Court refused the gunmakers’ resquest to appeal the decision, and the case went back down to the trial court again.
After 25 years of legal wrangling, a lawsuit described as “the most consequential legal case against the gun industry in this country” appears to have met its end – but the industry isn’t out of the legal woods just yet.
Back in 1999, the city of Gary, Indiana, filed a lawsuit attempting to hold firearm manufacturers responsible for failing to prevent illegal gun sales. On March 15, 2024, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a law aimed at extinguishing the suit.
As a legal scholar who has followed the case since it was first filed, I believe that the now all-but-certain dismissal of this lawsuit represents a major setback for gun control advocates.
But it won’t stop other states from trying to use civil litigation to rein in the gun industry. To understand why, let’s take a closer look at how Gary’s lawsuit lasted so long in the Indiana courts, and how state lawmakers finally gunned it down.