<![CDATA[gun industry]]>

NRA fires back over California gun discrimination bill

March 6, 2023 by Tom Knighton Leave a Comment

Imagine if a state decided that it was going to start discriminating against businesses that also did business with companies that were part of a certain industry, all because they didn’t like that industry.

It would be pretty messed up, yet that’s what California is basically doing.

A bill seeks to basically force the state to discriminate against any business that works with the gun industry.

Now, the NRA is weighing in on it via America’s 1st Freedom.

A California state senator has introduced anti-Second Amendment legislation that, if enacted, would greatly damage the firearms industry and the Second Amendment for Californians and, perhaps, for other Americans.
In February, S.B. 637 was introduced by state Sen. Dave Min (D). The text of the bill, and its attack on the legal business of manufacturing firearms, speaks for itself. S.B. 637, as introduced, says, “Existing law prohibits certain state trust funds from making or holding investments in business firms or financial institutions that engage in specified discriminatory business practices. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to subsequently amend this bill to include provisions that would prohibit financial institutions that do business with gun manufacturers from doing business with the state of California.”
In other words, since California law currently prohibits state entities from practicing financial discrimination against legal businesses, Senator Min wants the law amended to allow California state agencies to legally discriminate against financial institutions that do business with gun makers.
A press release from Min’s office explained that such legalized discrimination was needed to “end the gun violence epidemic.”
As Min himself stated in the release, “SB 637 will force Wall Street to make a choice between the blood money offered by the gun industry and doing business with the State of California, sending a clear message and more importantly a strong market signal that the State of California will not, either directly or indirectly, finance gun violence.”

Except that California has some of the most extensive gun control laws in the nation. Those haven’t seemed to do all that much to prevent, say, two mass shootings in the state just days apart.

Why is that?

Well, maybe because the people who are causing all the problems aren’t buying their guns lawfully in the first place. As such, the gun industry can’t really do anything to prevent what’s happening, so why try to push them and the businesses they work with over something that’s outside of their ability to impact?

Then again, this is California.

I can’t help but imagine the outcry if, say, Texas did something like this targeting companies that work with abortion clinics. One could make an argument almost word-for-word like the one being pushed in California, after all, and yet many who would applaud this would lash out at such an effort and we all know it.

People would go nuts.

Look, if California opts to do this, it’s just a matter of time before this lands before the Supreme Court. State governments shouldn’t get the same latitude to decide who to do business with that private entities have because they’re supposed to work to the benefit of the taxpayers. Cutting off businesses because they work with other lawful businesses is anything but that.

Judge turns down New Jersey’s request for stay in NSSF lawsuit

March 4, 2023 by John Petrolino Leave a Comment

There’s been several victories in the Garden State lately in the courts. A recent court challenge between the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the State of New Jersey found for the plaintiffs in a preliminary injunction. In the case, the NSSF was challenging New Jersey’s work-around of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. On March 3, 2023, United States District Court Judge Zahid N. Quraishi, denied the state’s request for a stay on the previous opinion.

National Shooting Sports Foundation v. Platkin directly goes after New Jersey’s law targeting the firearm industry. From the preliminary injunction earlier this year concerning the New Jersey law:

On June 5, 2022, the Governor of New Jersey signed A1765 into law. (Id., ¶ 27.) A1765 is titled “Act concerning public safety and supplementing Title 2C of the New Jersey Statutes.” (Id.) Al 765 creates a cause of action for public nuisance applying to gun industry members “engaged in the sale, manufacturing, distribution, importing, or marketing of a gun-related product, and any officer, agent, employee, or other person authorized to act on behalf of that person or who acts in active concert or participation with one or more such persons.” (Id. ¶ 29.) A1765 also authorizes liability for any gun industry member who fails to “establish, implement, and enforce reasonable controls regarding its manufacture, sale, distribution, importing, and marketing of gun related products.” (Id., ¶31.)

The judge found that the state’s law would not be able to survive full scrutiny, thus granting the injunction:

“As a practical matter, if a plaintiff demonstrates both likelihood of success on the merits and irreparable injury, it almost always will be the case that the public interest will favor the plaintiff.” American Tel. & Telegraph Co. v Winback & Conserve Program, Inc., 42 F.3d 1421, 1427 n.8 (3d Cir. 1994).

March 3rd’s opinion declined the state’s November 23, 2022 request to stay the opinion pending an appeal. As with the preliminary injunction, the judge is of the opinion that the state will not be victorious on appeal, thus their request was denied. The six page opinion by Quraishi quashes New Jersey’s hopes of further eroding the Second Amendment via charging those engaged in business in the firearms world with what can be considered non-existent crimes/mopery, for the foreseeable future.

Defendant argues that a stay is warranted because enjoining Section 58-35 will interfere with a critical public safety tool adopted by the New Jersey legislature. (Moving Br. at 23.) Defendant’s position is the same one he previously presented, however on the Motion he provides four illustrative, hypothetical examples to support his argument. (See id. at 23–27.) In opposition, NSSF argues that Defendant fails to establish irreparable injury. (Opp’n Br. at 24.)
In its previous Opinion, the Court already recognized that granting the preliminary injunction had the possibility of harming the State in that it would be unable to enforce its own statute. (ECF No. 17 at 18.) The Court did not take the issue lightly, but nonetheless found that this potential harm was insufficient to deny the injunction. It finds no reason in Defendant’s brief to deviate from its previous conclusion. Accordingly, the Court finds, for purposes of this Motion, that Defendant will not suffer irreparable harm absent a stay.
…
D. Public Interest
Because Defendant has not shown that he is likely to succeed on an appeal, the Court finds that it is in the public interest to continue the injunction. See Novartis Consumer Health, Inc. v. Johnson & Johnson-Merck Consumer Pharm. Co., Civ. No. 00-5361, 2001 WL 493266, at *3 (D.N.J. 2001).
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Defendant’s Motion to Stay will be DENIED. An appropriate Order will follow.

This is a victory for the NSSF and all engaged in commerce related to firearms in the Garden State. The purposefully vague terms of the law could subject civil rights organizations and even firearms instructors if they were engaged in so-called “marketing of gun-related products.” There’s far too much room for abuse of all constitutionally protected, lawful, and legitimate business dealings. That’s all beyond the blatant and obvious moves New Jersey was taking to usurp and work-around the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act proper.

In 2023, if the courts remain honest, there’s no way the state will be victorious over the NSSF once this has been completely put to bed. This is a big win which will hopefully help establish precedent that New Jersey has to respect the federal law protecting the firearm industry from frivolous lawsuits and or charges.

Gun industry marketing may end up before SCOTUS

February 22, 2023 by Tom Knighton Leave a Comment

The Protection of Lawful Commerce of Arms act is a bit unusual. It’s rare that Congress would enact protection for an entire industry to prevent unwarranted lawsuits from bankrupting it. However, the gun industry actually needed those protections.

Firearm manufacturers were facing a bevy of lawsuits from pretty much anyone looking for someone to blame. They were blamed for the actions of third parties, people who quite often never purchased the gun legally in the first place, and faced stiff penalties in court.

So, Congress acted.

Now, though, many anti-gun activists want to overturn gun industry protections while others are trying to find ways around them, as we’ve seen in several states.

It seems some are speculating about those latest efforts at bypassing the PLCAA ending up before the Supreme Court.

Buffalo’s lawsuit, filed in December, is one of the first cases of its kind under New York’s 2021 public nuisance gun law, which allows the state and people affected by gun violence to sue gun manufacturers, sellers and distributors for endangering the public’s health and safety — or creating a “public nuisance.”
The new statute and similar laws recently enacted in other states mark the latest round in a long-running battle between gun-control advocates and firearm manufacturers over a 2005 federal law that protects the industry from liability.
And this time, the issue could land before the Supreme Court, according to legal experts, as several Democratic-led states take a more aggressive approach to restricting firearms even after the court acted to expand gun rights last year by striking down a decades-old New York law that limited the ability to carry a handgun outside the home.
“For more than a decade, the court turned away basically every Second Amendment petition that it received,” said Joseph Blocher, a Second Amendment law professor at Duke University. But after last year’s ruling, “it could be that we’re going to be looking at multiple gun cases at the Supreme Court.”
…
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the gun industry’s trade association, is leading the challenge, arguing the new laws are unconstitutional because they are too vague, regulate transactions that take place outside of the states and are preempted by the 2005 law.
The laws are a “transparent and obvious attempt to circumvent the will of Congress,” said NSSF senior vice president Lawrence Keane.
A New Jersey federal judge sided with the group last month when he blocked the state’s law from being enforced, noting that it “is in direct conflict” with federal law. New Jersey has appealed the ruling.

And, at least in my mind, that’s only part of the issue here.

See, these “public nuisance” laws try to target the gun industry and its marketing. However, on top of the law being vague as to what constitutes “improper” marketing, there’s no requirement to show evidence that those who misuse the guns are even remotely familiar with the marketing in question.

In other words, gun companies simply wouldn’t be able to market at all if these states get their way about it.

I’m sorry, but nothing about that seems remotely right.

As a nation, we don’t punish people or companies for the actions of third parties without good cause. In the wake of the George Floyd riots, we didn’t seek to punish the news agencies that reported on Floyd’s death. Why would we? They did nothing wrong in reporting the news.

Yet similarly, the gun industry has to market new products. Otherwise, they cannot continue to exist.

You cannot blame them for what some maniac does with that firearm when nothing in their marketing remotely condones such an action.

So yes, this may well end up before the Supreme Court, and I suspect the gun industry hopes it does.

We’ve seen what the current makeup of the Court is and what it can do in support of the Second Amendment. I suspect these new laws seeking to undermine the PLCAA are going to be gutted if not completely overturned.

And that is very good news.