Those who seek to disarm Americans and eradicate the Second Amendment know they cannot simply go in and confiscate all guns — even though that is their ultimate fantasy. So, they take a different route.
It’s this law over registration, that enhanced background check, a longer waiting period, or any number of other measures to chip away at gun owners’ freedoms.
Increasingly their strategy includes using the legal system to tie up the firearms industry in a never-ending cycle of litigation. This expensive and time-consuming practice, despite what lawyers may declare about individual cases, is collectively nothing more than death by a thousand cuts.
Timothy Lytton is a professor at Georgia State University College of Law. He is also the author of “Suing the Gun Industry: A Battle at the Crossroads of Gun Control and Mass Torts.”
Lytton said this wave of lawsuits and legal filings can accomplish the goal of putting gun control issues in the public consciousness and spotlight the nation’s “gun crisis.”
On the surface, the legal actions he refers to are not those in the forefront of gun rights advocates’ minds. The normal emphasis on mental health or violent criminals is replaced by digging into the nuances of gun manufacturing.
For example, an attorney may demand proprietary information on the design of a weapon, how that weapon is distributed, and marketing decisions made by the company.
In the process of sifting through these pebbles, the plaintiffs hope to uncover something insidious they may use against the manufacturer. Remember, they know because of the Constitution they cannot unilaterally shut the industry down.
Instead, it’s death by a thousand cuts.
The goal is to put the industry on the defensive through the civil discovery system. Details that federal regulators may not have are dragged out into the light with the hope that something will be the proverbial “smoking gun.”
As Lytton declared, “that might include decisions about how they think about gun design, who they think their market is, their awareness of siphoning of their products to illegal markets.”
In other words, are historical and respected members of the industry flouting federal law in an obvious and foolish attempt to line their pockets? Of course, the answer is no.
To borrow law enforcement terminology, it’s a fishing expedition. But those who oppose your gun rights believe that if enough gets thrown against the wall, something will eventually stick.
Lytton even compared these efforts to slowly take down gun manufacturers to the wave of lawsuits that hit the opioid industry beginning in the 2000s. Victims and their families along with states governments and health departments began piling litigation onto pharmaceutical companies to get redress for the opioid crisis.
Of course, there is no legitimate correlation between drug abuse and the Second Amendment, but the tactic is the same.
Litigants seek to accomplish similar results to previous waves of lawsuits against tobacco companies, asbestos manufacturers, and even the auto industry. There are several key issues standing in the way of lawyers bringing down the weapons industry.
There’s the Second Amendment. Tobacco and opioids and automobiles are not enshrined into the founding liberties bestowed on this nation. Until the Bill of Rights is thrown onto the trash heap, any honest judiciary will see through these attempts to nullify bedrock freedoms.
Then there’s the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
Passed in 2005, this key legislation provides immunity for the industry from those who want to impose liability for criminal misuse of firearms. As much as the anti-gun crowd wants it to go away, it is the law of the land.
Now more than ever, it is extremely important that the watchdogs guarding our Second Amendment freedoms are supported. They are the diligent defenders at the gate standing between those who would use a thousand cuts to whittle gun rights down to nothing.
