I actually gave up the practice of law five years ago when I retired after 30+ years, and prefer spending my remaining time on this earth thinking about important things such as ballistics, reloading the perfect match bullet and how to get tiny groups out of my rifle/bullet combination, rather than law and politics - which are inseparable.
However, since you asked, might I suggest you start your search for the truth in this matter with the following webpage (see below) which will cue you into the legislative machinations behind the effort to save the firearms industry from product liability lawsuits based upon nothing more than a claim that the criminal use of their product was foreseeable - which cuts against a long-standing principle that, absent a special relationship to the specific criminal actor, a person is entitled to assume the acts of any other person will be lawful. In simple terms, that means unless you know a specific person will commit a criminal act with the gun you sell him or her, you can presume he or she will act lawfully with it. Another exception to the act exists for negligent entrustment, such as might occur when you sell a firearm to someone who is a prohibited possessor and you knew or reasonably should have known he or she was. This is more applicable to a careless retailer than a manufacturer. (The point in this is 'product liability' lawsuits were being misused to try to drive the firearms industry out of business, not because the product was defective, as product liability lawsuits were created for, but because the plaintiffs wanted to punish the manufacturer of a product that was unlawfully misused, and they were financed in that effort by those who simply want guns gone. That is a motive that is a complete misuse of the judicial system and the body of law known as 'products liability.')
To really understand this legal struggle to stop the corruption of an otherwise legitimate body of law, i.e. 'product liability' law, you need to go back to the 1980s. I never quote the Washington Post but (grudgingly) I have to admit they summed it up nicely in an article on May 24, 2016:
Background from the 1980s: It is no secret that firearms prohibition organizations have been frustrated by their inability to convince most legislative bodies to enact their agenda. Thus, they have turned to the courts to attempt to create de facto prohibitions. The first round began in the 1980s, when lawsuits claimed that some properly functioning handguns were “defectively designed” within the meaning of product liability law. All of the suits involved pushing beyond the boundaries of product liability precedent. The product liability lawsuits spurred many states to enact statutes forbidding product liability suits against manufacturers and retailers of properly functioning firearms.
Anyway, You can begin to tune into the reasons behind the passage of the Act and read the official legislative intent by going to your local law library (UT Austin Law School has a great US Code section. I have been there several times). I will provide herein the citation to the legislation, the public law and the USC sections involved. If you google them, you will find much more discussion on the web but it is always best to go to the original documents and read the information regarding legislative intent there, then read the annotations that proceed from the original statutory provisions and you will find much discussion by courts following, modifying or rejecting the statute which will provide further information regarding the intent of the statute and why it was enacted.
The Statute is called "The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA)." The PLCAA is codified at
15 U.S.C. 105 §§ 7901-7903. The Act is entitled "An Act to prohibit civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others." The Act also resulted in amendments to the federal criminal code at
18 U.S.C. ch. 44 §§ 921, 922, 924. Note that nothing in these laws prevent the victims from maintaining an action against the manufacturer for the manufacturers defective product, or for the negligent, reckless or criminal acts of the manufacturer. It only prohibits a lawsuit against the manufacturer for someone elses' unlawful use of the product.
It was introduced in the Senate by my Senator (
S. 397 by Larry Craig (
R–
ID)
on February 16, 2005). The debate went on from there until it was finally signed into law by Bush two days after my birthday. It became Public Law #109-92.
Having said all that, you can read the online version of the Legislative Intent here:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/397/text
I apologize for the length of this post and the rambling nature. It is impossible to sum up 40 years of judicial and legislative history and political chess moves in a short post. It is easily the subject of an entire semester class in law school, and it will never end so long as we remain a free nation.
Thank you, but, now I just shoot...
