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One of the increasingly popular strategies used by anti-gun states to try to get around the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act is to claim that firearms themselves and even their advertising present a unique public nuisance that threatens the state of law, order and peaceful coexistence that would surely exist without them.

The PLCAA protects firearm manufacturers and retailers against lawsuits if their products are used by criminals to do what criminals do. The Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex can’t abide that since one of their primary goals — in addition to legislating civilian gun ownership out of existence — is to bankrupt companies that make and sell firearms by smothering them under an avalanche of frivolous, vexatious litigation.

Toward that end, some states have adopted the Texas abortion law model that allows pretty much anyone to file a lawsuit against a gun maker or retailer by claiming they’ve been somehow affected by “gun violence.” Or something.

Hawaii is one of the states that has adopted the nuisance law strategy and now the National Shooting Sports Foundation is challenging the island paradise’s law in court. Here’s their press release announcing the lawsuit . . .

NSSF, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, filed a legal challenge against Hawaii’s recently-enacted public nuisance law, which – unless it is enjoined – will allow frivolous lawsuits against members of the firearm industry for the criminal and negligent misuse of firearms by remote third parties. NSSF alleges the law is designed to evade the judgment of the U.S. Supreme Court and laws enacted by Congress.

“Hawaii is attempting to subvert the will of Congress when the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) was passed with a wide bipartisan majority in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President George W. Bush,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “Public nuisance laws like Hawaii’s are nothing short of an attempt to drive ‘legislation through litigation,’ which is exactly why Congress passed PLCAA in the first place. These laws are unconstitutional and an abuse of the legal system to force a political agenda outside the legislative channels.”

Hawaii’s HB 426, signed into law by Gov. Josh Green, attempts to regulate firearm industry products produced outside of Hawaii by requiring the industry to adhere to an undefined and unenforceable set of “reasonable controls.” The law allows state officials and private parties to bring civil actions against firearm industry members for damages resulting from the criminal misuse of firearms or ammunition by a remote third party. This is not in keeping with the intent of PLCAA; rather, it is exactly what the PLCAA was designed to prevent.

Hawaii is attempting to resurrect the same sort of frivolous lawsuits that states and local governments attempted in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which led to Congress passing PLCAA. The PLCAA was signed into law because Congress knew antigun politicians were using the courts as an end-round to circumvent the lawmaking process. The irony was certain elected officials then – and now – oppose the PLCAA because it blocked their “attempt to circumvent the Legislative branch of government” and “would expand civil liability in a manner never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution.”

The PLCAA does nothing more than codify black letter tort law. The law simply says that these agenda-driven lawsuits can’t be brought against a manufacturer or retailer that had nothing to do with the criminal or wrongful misuse of their product.

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46 COMMENTS

      • “And I swear, it better not have one ding on it. Not ONE…”

        Should have been a DGU… 🙂

        • my buddies dad, jack sevier, was rated no.1 senior (over 65? i dunno) windsailer in the world. he’d launch out of tampa all the way to some islands pretty far out there, miles for sure. he’d let me borrow any of his boards but one, it was like spinal tap, don’t even look at it, the hull surface was ~perfect~.

  2. Im kinda not liking TTAG for pushing this Bio Fire crap. Theyll be all for making everybody get one since the almighty dollar will be at stake. Juat dont have a good feeling about the two entities entertwined. Off topic but i felt i had to put this somewhere.

    • AQ, what Biofire ads? I use Brave for my browser and block all those annoying ads.

      • Firefox here, + Adblocker Ultimate Plus

        I’m seeing only two ads right now: SPCTRM and MyTacticalEDC.

    • AQ — Like Mike, I’m using the Brave browser.

      I have the AdBlockPlus extension. I also run AdGuard AdBlocker.

      Overkill? I didn’t understand what you and another were saying about it since I haven’t seen any Bio Fire ads.

        • oldshthead…You are seeing subliminal democRat ads because your head is packed full of slandering Trump demoCrap…get help, mental help.

        • “…You are seeing subliminal democRat ads ”

          Learn to read with an emphasis on comprehension. Difficult, I know, but *try*. I was agreeing with ‘Man with no name’.

          I’m not seeing any ads since I use a good adblocker.

          Get some much-needed ‘intimate attention’, God knows you obviously need it… 🙂

    • AQ,

      So instead of selling ad space to legitimate firearm-relsted companies, TTAG should cancel them if TTAGers do not like the product? What would you actually like to see happen?

      Also a Brave Browser user.

    • aq…Never mind smart guns when Gun Control couldn’t find a bigger butt kisser than you if they asked for one.

    • I haven’t seen any Biofire ads but then I pretty much ignore any popups and all the click bait that appear on most websites these days.

  5. Let’s sue the oil industry for arsons committed with gasoline. Throw in the match and cigarette lighter companies too. We have electric stoves. No one needs a grill, or the pyrotechnic devices to ignite them.

  7. I must feel like a few ex-Californians.
    There’s no way I’m returning to live in Hawai’i until a WHOLE lot changes.

    Beautiful, but too crazy for me, now.

    Texas is the best I can do at the moment.

    • I’m opting for South Carolina. Our legislators have authorized open carry, concealed carry and are on the verge of approving Constitutioal carry. (I’ll still use ccw since I don’t want the bad guys to know that I’m “packing”.

  8. Funny, isn’t it, that the Constitution does not restrict our firearm ownership by commanding that we use certain caliber weapons, or certain barrel lengths. All it says is that this 2nd amendment SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. Seems pretty clear to me.

  9. When .giv bans gunms just think how rich us gunm owners are going to be.
    $2,500 Hipoints, $15,000 Glocks.
    9mm FMJ box of 50 $500
    Dear Mister President theBiden thank you for making a poor gunm collector rich.

    • Sorry to burst yer bubble, but by the time a highpoint is worth $2500, it’ll take a wheel barrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread. Bidenomics or Bidenflation or whatever.

      • Hmm bread for bullets not quite cash for gold but may be worth looking at if we go worse than Argentina but better than Zimbabwe.

      • If a human cant have it they want it all the more.
        Bread is not on the ban list.
        Take you a glass of water, make it against the law, see how good the water taste when you cant have any at all.

  10. Not just cocaine: Secret Service reveals that pot also found in white house (errr.. drug house) > https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/not-just-cocaine-secret-service-reveals-another-banned-substance-was-found-in-biden-s-white-house/ar-AA1dPoOi?ocid=ansmsnnews11&cvid=d23e44ce3c9b40c7b121be85b7d128ff&ei=25

    And secure service says they are ending the cocain investigation > https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-secret-service-ends-white-house-cocaine-probe/ar-AA1dPg8Q?OCID=ansmsnnews11

    “It said it had attempted to determine a suspect through fingerprints, DNA traces, and video evidence, but had not been able to do so.”

    Amazing, could not determine a suspect through determine a suspect through fingerprints, DNA traces, and video evidence for the drug probe (personally, i’m betting it was Hunter)…. but the government with nothing more than a law abiding person exercising their 2A right can show up at that persons home without a warrant and accuse them of a crime of ‘straw purchase’ they did not commit because they bought 2 guns legally.

    So the ‘Drug Lord n Chief’ Joe Biden probably got Hunter out of trouble again.

    • Coke probably eats DNA, prints are always iffy, but good point on the vid.

      l doubt it was Hunter, unless they just want to rub our noses in it.

      Pun intended.

      • They ended the short investigation because they know or suspect who did it. The propagandists made it sound like this was a highly trafficked area, and it could be anyone. This was actually one of the most secure places on the planet. It was near the situation room. You don’t get that far without being searched unless you’re a really special someone.

        • can only imagine what heinous activity this is distracting from. seems unusual that it ever got reported at all, and it’s weird media is shouting it; not weird that outcome= zero.
          what’d we miss?

        • The only reason they reported it is because they didn’t think it was cocaine at first. I mean what sort of idiot would bring cocaine into the White House? At first they thought it could be some type of poison, so they went on lock down when it was discovered. Then they had to report on it. The MSM mostly laughed it off like it was funny. It would have been 24/7 coverage if it was the Trump administration.

  11. Ride-share passenger stabs driver, jumps off FDR Drive > https://pix11.com/news/local-news/manhattan/1-dead-1-injured-in-stabbing-near-manhattan-bridge-fdny/

    daily across the United States there are ~1,400 criminal knife attacks against victims. Its rare for them to make the news even when they result in death unless there is something ‘spectacular’ or ‘political’ about them. Basically, on a country wide basis since the country as a while is also a ‘single place’ a ‘mass-knifing’ every day with ~1,400 victims.

  12. I used to want to go to Hawaii, but now I don’t want be near the commie cocksucker state!

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