WASHINGTON, D.C. —NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, applauds the Indiana Supreme Court for standing up for the rule of law when it denied a petitionto transfer jurisdiction by the City of Gary, Ind., to extend the 26-year-old frivolous lawsuit against firearm manufacturers that sought to hold them responsible for the criminal actions of unrelated and remote third parties. The decision brings the unfounded claims and abuse of the judicial system to a final end.
The City of Gary appealed Smith & Wesson Corp., et al. v. City of Gary, a public nuisance lawsuit, to the state Supreme Court after Indiana's Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of a recently enacted law— championed by NSSF — providing that only the state of Indiana can bring a lawsuit against a firearm industry member. During over a quarter century of drawn-out litigation, the City of Gary failed to provide any evidence of wrongdoing by the firearm manufacturers.
"The order by Indiana's Supreme Court ends a dark chapter in the history of America's firearm industry," said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel. "Sadly, however, the lawfare against members of the firearm industry continues, backed by well-funded gun control groups and antigun Democrat politicians with the support of liberal, elitist big law firms located in the canyons of Wall Street and elsewhere. They deploy new and devious strategies in open defiance of the will of Congress, but their end goal is the same. They want to destroy the firearm industry and with it the Second Amendment. Congress must reassert its authority to end the lawfare against our law-abiding industry for once and for all."
The City of Gary, Ind., first filed their claims in 1999, as part of a coordinated effort by over 40 big city mayors who conspired together through the U.S. Conference of Mayors with gun control activist from Brady United (formerly known as the Brady Center) trial lawyers. These frivolous cases filed in the late 1990s were dismissed, with the exception of the City of Gary claims.
Congress passed in a broad bipartisan fashion, and President George W. Bush signed into law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) in 2005. The PLCAA blocks lawsuits that attempt to hold firearm and ammunition industry companies liable for the criminal actions of third parties who misuse the industry's lawful non-defective products. More specifically, this commonsense law ensures that responsible and law-abiding federally licensed manufacturers and retailers of firearms and ammunition are not unjustly blamed in federal and state civil actions for "the harm caused by those who criminally or unlawfully misuse" these products that function as designed and intended.