It’s a safe bet that more Democratic voters were watching the series finale of Downton Abbey rather than the debate between Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton on Sunday. But one of the most intense exchanges in the highlight reels posted Monday showed a clear deception aimed at voters to help chip away at Americans’ gun rights.
Besides the annoying “whistle words” of saying the AR-15 is an “automatic weapon” (and don’t think for one second that one of the most deliberate speakers in politics was making an honest mistake), Hillary Clinton tried some haymakers on her opponent over a congressional law that protects firearms manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits.
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA, was passed by Congress to render moot activist lawsuits against gun makers whose sole purpose was to sue the industry out of business. Clinton loudly proclaimed that the PLCAA is some aberration drummed up by the “gun lobby” to shield the industry from any liability.
“The NRA went to Congress and said, ‘give us absolute immunity.’ No other industry in America has absolute immunity and they sell products all the time that cause harm and they’re held responsible,” Clinton shouted.
But that’s demonstrably false. Just ask Brazilian gunmaker Taurus whether the PLCAA protected that well-known firearms company against product liability. Last year the company was forced to settle a class action lawsuit to the tune of $39 million over accusations several models of its guns fired when dropped or when the safety was engaged. Or how about Remington, one of the oldest companies in America, who’s in the midst of finalizing a settlement that could see the company replacing as many as 8 million triggers on the Model 700 rifle that critics say will fire when the safety lever is pushed.
Are those companies protected by Congress and “the gun lobby” from liability of their products? That’s a multi-million dollar “no.”
What the PLCAA does do is shield the gun industry from what former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used to call “lawfare” — the idea that barring legislative change, anti-gun advocates could use donor money to tie the industry in judicial knots, eventually veering them away from business altogether.
According to the law’s text, the purpose of the act is:
To prohibit causes of action against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers of firearms or ammunition products, and their trade associations, for the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended.
But what gun banners want to do is hold someone like Remington liable for a criminal who uses its gun in a crime. That’s like saying GM should be held liable for Lakeisha Holloway’s vehicular rampage on the Las Vegas strip in December.
Noted tort law instructor Victor Schwartz pointed out in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by that Congress has seen it necessary to step in when the drug industry was threatened by similar suits in 1998, same with the aviation industry in 1994 and with public school teachers in 2001. All of these laws were intended not to protect drug makers, plane designers or teachers from any and all liability, but to narrowly shield them from lawsuits by activist organizations designed to crush them out of existence.
Clinton surely knows the PLCAA doesn’t give gun makers “absolute immunity” from lawsuits when their product fails, a simple Google search would prove that. And claiming firearms manufacturers have special legal protection like no other constituency in America is false. She should know. In 2001 Clinton voted for special protections to shield teachers from liability lawsuits when they act within school rules to discipline students.
Good on Bernie Sanders for pushing back on Clinton’s distortions. But it’s unlikely it’ll do much good. Christian Lowe is a Senior Editor with Grand View Media Group and is Editor in Chief of Shooting Sports Retailer magazine.
