John Feinblatt Shannon Watts Everytown Moms Gun Control
Everytown president John Feinblatt and paid sock puppet Shannon Watts (image courtesy voanews.com)

For years, gun control organizations have been seeking to dismantle the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). That’s the crucial federal law that shields firearm manufacturers and sellers from frivolous lawsuits designed to bankrupt law-abiding businesses by blaming them for the criminal misuse of lawfully sold firearms or drive the industry to its knees and impose gun control through court ordered settlements.

It is what former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich dubbed “regulation through litigation.”

(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Gun control advocates have unsuccessfully urged Congress to repeal the law, falsely claiming it provides total immunity from all lawsuits, a blatant falsehood regularly repeated by President Joe Biden even though the media has fact-checked him and said it’s not true.

In court, these groups have unsuccessfully challenged the PLCAA’s constitutionality. Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before Congress that the PLCAA was Constitutionally-sound, despite the contrary rhetoric coming from The White House and the gun ban lobby. They continue to ask courts to misapply the law’s exceptions (disproving the total immunity claim).

All these efforts are designed to open up a new floodgate of frivolous litigation against the industry not seen since the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was exactly that kind of litigation the bipartisan PLCAA prevents.

Now, the enemies of the Second Amendment have opened up a new line of attack on the PLCAA. Surreptitiously led by the Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety, they have convinced a few “blue” antigun legislatures to pass an unconstitutional “public nuisance” (anti-PLCAA) statute. These statutes attempt an end run around the PLCAA to set the table for a renaissance of reckless lawsuits against members of the industry.

NSSF is challenging the Everytown-backed laws in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, California, Illinois, Washington and Hawaii.

Out of the Shadows

No longer content to be the “man behind the curtain” any longer, Everytown is now stepping into the well of the courtroom to defend its unconstitutional laws. Everytown Law recently filed petitions for three of their staff attorneys to represent Hawaii’s Attorney General Anne E. Lopez, in NSSF’s challenge to Hawaii’s unconstitutional “public nuisance” law. This puts Everytown Law in an active role of defending these unconstitutional laws.

NSSF is committed to preventing Everytown and other gun-grabbing organizations from destroying our industry and with it, the Second Amendment.

In a blatant display of its true intentions, Everytown has now stepped out from behind the curtain and onto center stage to defend Hawaii’s House Bill 426. This legislation seeks to impose vague and unenforceable “reasonable controls” on firearm products produced outside of Hawaii. It grants state officials, organizations, and private individuals the power to unleash civil lawsuits against firearm industry members for the actions of deranged criminals.

Everytown’s court appearance in support of this bill is a glaring confirmation of its active role in undermining the PLCAA and burdening the firearm industry with stifling regulations that threaten the Second Amendment altogether.

This maneuver not only tramples on the rights of responsible gun owners, but also heaves an unfair burden onto small businesses struggling to navigate an already complex legal and economic landscape inherent in operating with a Federal Firearms License (FFL).

Victimizing the Victims

Everytown’s Affirmative Litigation Counsel, Alla Lefkowitz, is pivotal in the group’s campaign against the PLCAA. Formerly associated with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Lefkowitz’s history of spearheading legal action against firearm businesses is alarming.

Everytown Alla Lefkowitz
Alla Lefkowitz (courtesy Duke Law)

The infamous case involving the Phillips family is a prime example. The Brady Center urged the family to bring a baseless lawsuit against Lucky Gunner, a firearm business, following the tragic murder of their daughter by a mentally ill criminal in Aurora, Colo., in 2012. Brady urged the family to sue without disclosing that both Colorado law and the PLCAA prevent such civil actions and left the family to fend for itself when its lawsuit predictably failed and, under Colorado law, they were required to pay the defendant’s attorney’s fees.

The result? The Phillips family was left bankrupt. This case underscores how gun control organizations like Everytown and Brady are ready to exploit grieving families’ emotions to advance their ideologies, even at the cost of justice and fairness.

Everytown’s masquerade as a champion of “responsible firearm regulation” is a sham. Their actions speak louder than their hollow words. By actively participating in these “public nuisance” lawsuits and championing laws like Hawaii’s HB 426, Everytown makes plain its intention to undermine the PLCAA and smother the firearm industry with irrational restrictions. Restrictions that only erode the Second Amendment rights of Americans and do nothing to make communities safer. Their track record of manipulating tragic events for their own political gain is morally reprehensible.

True advocates for responsible firearm ownership must critically examine Everytown’s motives and actions to ensure genuine safety and justice prevail. Everytown’s tactics prioritize radical politics over the well-being of families and small businesses. It is imperative to unmask these deceitful ploys and stand against any agenda that threatens civil liberties and the integrity of industries that serve law-abiding citizens.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

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31 COMMENTS

  1. Wonder if I can sue the university and/or teachers for producing criminal rioters if this goes through.

  2. A hate group trying to suppress human and civil rights. Paid for by a rich, entitled white man.

    This is my surprised face.

    • One of the original haters and strong advocate for defunding law enforcement. Including the complete dismantling of a major cities police force. Has suddenly had a hugh change in attitude toward law enforcement. Wonder what could cause such a 180 degree change in ideology? Let’s see…
      Dem Party chairwoman who once called to defund the police carjacked and assaulted in Minneapolis | Fox News
      https://www.foxnews.com/media/dem-party-chairwoman-once-called-defund-police-carjacked-assaulted-minneapolis

      • I’m sorry it happened to her, I’m happy she is alive, I truly am. But she and others campaigned and voted for it, and it shows their problem with crime, that they facilitated and emboldened, is not because the law abiding have guns to protect our selves from the violent criminals she helped put on the street.

        • Hosea 8:7: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” I have no sympathy for liberal/progressive democrats who suffer from their own emotionally driven ideology. They deserve to face the same pain and suffering they have forced upon innocent citizens. If that is what it takes for them to see the light… So be it.

        • She has sown the wind….the Amish only broke one of her legs. They also didn’t burn down her home nor rape her children. But she wants to eliminate the police. I hope the Amish go back to finish the job. She is an evil bitch who hates the world and wants to see it burn.

          Let her experience it first.

  4. Big Pharma included? No one seems to be bothering doctors for over prescribing opioids, even though they have eyes on their patients. Insurance companies also seem to be exempt from any litigation while binding the hands of their doctors.

    We need to start prosecuting the bad actors, anything else is smoke and mirrors.

    • Your joking right? Lots of doctors have been criminally charged for over prescribing narcotics. You need to figure out how google works.

  6. Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” seems to faded away. The last story I read about one of those mayors: the mayor’s boyfriend wouldn’t “come across”, so he fired a shot into the floor. Haven’t heard a word since.

  11. I don’t know why the Right is defending the PLCAA. PLCAA properly does for the 2nd Amendment that which s230 properly does for the 1st Amendment. It makes illegal the practice of the anti-Justice principle of ‘guilt by association’. Yet the Right has railed against s230 for YEARS now. Thus I have no sympathy for the Right here, because they are NOT preaching nor practicing the principle of rights. Like the Left, they are preaching and practicing nothing but their arbitrary WHIMS. In other words, BOTH the Left AND the Right treat the individual as their PROPERTY, to be disposed of as they see fit, to satisfy their desires. NEITHER is defending the individual’s rights. Like competing Asset Managers, the Left and Right simply squabble among themselves over how ‘best’ to dispose of that human CHATTEL – the Left violating the individual’s right to self-defense, the Right violating the individual’s right to free speech.

    Same evil principle – just different applications of it.

      • “You don’t say?”

        Indeed I do say. As their brute attacks on s230 prove, the Right is certainly not defending PLCAA on the principle of rights – facts you say not a word even to dispute, let alone refute – because you can’t.

        • From “No One Left To Lie To”, By Christopher Hitchens, 1999.

          “… the two main parties were too much alike, resembling two cozily fused buttocks of the same giant derriere …”

  12. Why should anyone be surprised? And our Leftist comrades keep claiming they do not want to confiscate our guns.

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