Politicians in anti-gun jurisdictions tend to favor a dysfunctional approach to public safety, whereby the softer targets – the law abiding –are burdened with new restrictions and potential liability, while the actual perpetrators of violent crime are held less or not at all accountable. The progressive political agenda is at odds with law enforcement and with individuals exercising their Second Amendment rights, acting as their own first responders, and the inevitable result is more preventable crime.
Last year, for instance, in response to a rash of carjackings and other crimes, the City of Chicago sued automakers Kia and Hyundai, claiming the companies’ failure to include anti-theft technology in their vehicles was to blame for the “steep rise in vehicle thefts, reckless driving, property damage, and a wide array of related violent crimes” in the city. A telling line from the complaint refers to the car theft “crime wave” and alleged that “Chicago is bearing the cost of [defendant manufacturers’] unlawful conduct, as it pays for property damage, diverts law enforcement resources, and strives to keep the public safe from harm that Defendants could have prevented.”
At the time, a news report quoted Democratic Alderman Raymond Lopez on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s response to the skyrocketing car thefts and progressive policies that favored “criminals on the street.” “Clearly, we don’t have a crime problem. We have a Kia problem in the city of Chicago, according to Mayor Johnson… Chicago’s answer to the Kia problem was to hand out those steering wheel column locks, The Club, as a way of helping our citizens, not necessarily prosecuting those repeat offenders who know that they could steal a car, sell it, or use it in crimes,” Lopez said. “We know why they’re stealing these cars. We know what they’re doing with these cars, but the fact that we refuse to call out this behavior, and we’re giving cover to the criminals, seems to just be another liberal ploy.”
In March, City of Chicago attorneys, along with lawyers from gun-control group Everytown, filed a similar public nuisance lawsuit against gunmaker Glock, Inc. The suit relied on a new state law, the Firearms Industry Responsibility Act, which amended the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act to specifically target firearms sellers under the guise of “unlawful practices.” Such practices include contributing “to a condition in Illinois that endangers the safety or health of the public by conduct either unlawful in itself or unreasonable under all circumstances, including failing to establish or utilize reasonable controls” in relation to the manufacture, import, distribution, marketing or sale of a firearm or related product.
The suit alleges that criminals have been illegally installing auto sears on Glock handguns, converting the guns into fully automatic weapons with “military-grade firepower,” and that the manufacturer is liable because of the “susceptibility of Glock pistols to modification and Glock’s refusal to correct the problem.” Such modified Glocks, according to the complaint, “have been used to cause chaos on public streets and roadways,” “have been used in drive-by homicides and assaults,” and “have been found in the possession of extremely dangerous and irresponsible individuals.”
The lawsuit asked the court to enjoin the sale of Glock pistols to Chicago residents, order the gunmaker to “implement reasonable controls,” and sought an assessment of fines against Glock for each day that it continued to violate, allegedly, the municipal and state law prohibiting conduct “that endangers the safety or health of the public by conduct either unlawful in itself or unreasonable under all circumstances,” and a wide variety of other damages.
It is plain at this point that Glock does not manufacture, import, distribute or market auto sears, or provide information on how to install such aftermarket devices on its pistols, not the least because auto sear devices are already proscribed under federal law. Both 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b) and 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(24) define a “machinegun” to include “any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.” With limited exceptions, simple possession of a “machinegun” (including just that “part”) is a felony under federal law, punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment. The same prohibition against possession of “any combination of parts designed or intended for use in converting any weapon into a machine gun, or any combination or parts from which a machine gun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person,” is also a felony under Illinois state law; 720 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/24-1(a)(7)(i).
While the City’s complaint acknowledges that the conversion of guns using auto sears is already illegal, and that the auto sears are “sold within the criminal gun market” after being “made in China and falsely marketed online” and “imported illegally to the United States,” or have been unlawfully manufactured in America using 3D printers, the lawsuit initially named Glock as the sole defendant.
On July 22, the City voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit, without prejudice, and refiled it to add, as defendants, Glock’s Austria-based parent company and two suburban Chicago gun shops. The substance of the lawsuit remains essentially unchanged, although with respect to the gun store defendants the City alleges that the licensed dealers are aware that Glock pistols are “easily and frequently modified into illegal machine guns and yet continue to market and sell” them.
Of course, these are the kinds of legal maneuverings that prompted the passage of the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). Absent a special relationship, longstanding, ordinary tort law shields defendants from liability for the conduct of unrelated third parties, and the federal PLCAA simply codifies these traditional liability rules.
The legislation underlying Chicago’s lawsuit, the Firearms Industry Responsibility Act, is itself now under attack for attempting to “resurrect the very kinds of lawsuits that the PLCAA was enacted to eliminate.” The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) has brought suit alleging the law is unconstitutional, preempted by the PLCAA, and represents yet another “coordinated attempt to destroy the firearms industry by saddling it with liability for the acts” of third-party criminals who misuse guns:
Although the statute purports to be aimed at preventing firearms from being used in such a way that endangers public safety or health, [the law] does not regulate the use (or misuse) of firearms. Nor does it impose liability on individuals who misuse firearms to the detriment of themselves or others. Instead, [it] regulates selling, manufacturing, and advertising lawful (and constitutionally protected) firearms and related products…. [It] removes traditional elements of tort law that ensure that judges and juries do not impose liability on private parties for constitutionally protected conduct. Making matters worse, the statute jettisons traditional proximate cause in favor of allowing state courts to impose liability on licensed industry members for the actions of third-party criminals with whom the industry members never dealt.
The NSSF statement on the lawsuit notes the irony of the firearm industry working “hand-in-hand with the ATF and Justice Department to prevent illegal straw purchases of firearms while the [Illinois] governor signs laws that set criminals free on the streets to prey on the innocent citizens of Illinois. Just like Governor Pritzker’s signature on a law banning cash bail, this law empowers criminals and punishes those who obey the law.”
The most interesting development while all this litigation unfolds, however, has to be the pending investigation by House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), examining “potential collusion” between the Biden-Harris Administration, the City of Chicago and “anti-Second Amendment plaintiffs” in the Glock lawsuit.
According to a June 14 press release, the “Oversight Committee has learned that the White House met privately with representatives from Glock, during which the Administration requested Glock change their pistol design,” followed by Everytown for Gun Safety President John Feinblatt tweeting about the meeting. “Because this was a private meeting between Glock and the White House, Mr. Feinblatt seemed to have inside access to the White House meeting which raises questions about collusion with [the White House Office on Gun Violence Prevention]. And rather than aggressively prosecuting criminals, government agencies are colluding with anti-gun interest groups to cripple a manufacturer who sells a legal product in a highly regulated sales market.” This raises questions about government transparency, possible “conflicts of interest by White House staff operating at the behest of former or future employers, and other issues of trust in government.”
Describing the Glock lawsuit as a “misguided action [that] ignores the responsibility of Federal law enforcement agencies to aggressively prosecute criminals who violate Federal statutes and local prosecutors who have taken a soft on crime approach to prosecutions,” the Committee Chairman wrote to ATF director Steven Dettelbach on June 14, requesting his assistance with the investigation by producing, among other things, “[a]ll documents and communications between or among the ATF, the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention , Everytown for Gun Safety, Everytown Law, any State Attorneys General, officials of the City of Chicago, Corporation Counsel of the City of Chicago, City of Chicago Department of Law, Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrision, LLP, which include the terms ‘Glock’, ‘auto sear(s)’, ‘Glock switches’, ‘machinegun conversion device’ (‘MCD’) or ‘Chicago litigation’…”
A similar letter was sent on June 14 to Stefanie Feldman, director of the White House Office on Gun Violence Prevention, asking for all documents and communications between her office, the ATF, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Everytown Law related to the Glock litigation or auto sears in general, as well as all documents and communications between Rob Wilcox, the deputy director of the White House Office for Gun Violence Prevention, and John Feinblatt (Wilcox previously “served as the Senior Director of Federal Government Affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety,” and prior to that, “worked at Brady”).
On July 19, Chairman Comer fired off a followup letter to Ms. Feldman, indicating that the response received to the June 14 letter “was unaccompanied by any of the responsive documents I requested in my initial letter. Efforts by my staff to obtain compliance with the document request from the White House have gone unanswered.” According to one source, instead of providing the requested documentation, the White House Deputy Counsel to the President stonewalled and accused the Committee of “doing the gun lobby’s bidding by launching a baseless political attack on the Biden Administration under the guise of an ‘investigation.’”
“The White House should spend more time complying with Committee requests, and less time obstructing congressional investigations into potential misconduct and misuse of office by White House officials,” Chairman Comer wrote back, reiterating the request for the documents and warning that the Committee “will use all tools at its disposal, including use of the compulsory process, to obtain the information the Committee seeks.”
As NSSF observes, rather than hold accountable the criminals who illegally possess and use auto sears, “all indications are that The White House teamed with the City of Chicago who retained Everytown for Gun Safety to file the frivolous lawsuit against GLOCK, Inc. Now that they’re being called out for the potential collusion, the only answers White House officials will provide are temper tantrums over the fact that the House Oversight Committee is doing actual oversight of Executive Branch abuses of courts to bring lawfare against a member of the firearm industry.”
Time will tell, but the goings-on in the Biden-Harris Administration have been far from transparent of late
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