So-called Everytown for Gun Safety, which hasn’t been heard of in most towns in the nation and has hardly anything to do with gun safety, brags that its “Smoking Gun” project is dedicated to “exposing the gun industry’s role in our gun violence epidemic.”
Judging from its latest “exposé,” whoever is in charge there doesn’t know the difference between the truth and wildly exaggerated hype about a very important subject that we’ll set the record straight on here.
Headlined “Newly Uncovered Documents Reveal NRA’s Behind-the-Scenes Efforts to Create Sweeping Legal Protections for the Gun Industry,” the press release about the report tries to make it sound like NRA officials crept around in political backrooms, passing out $100 bills and trying to make a law that would protect gun manufacturers that the author calls “bad actors” from helping murder innocent Americans.
Actually, that wasn’t the case at all. Channeling my inner Paul Harvey, “Now, the rest of the story.”
In the early 2000s, Andrew Cuomo, attorney general under President Bill Clinton, was encouraging frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers for the illegal misuse of their lawfully made and legally sold products. More than 30 cities and counties had sued various firearms manufacturers, alleging that they should be held financially responsible for the cost of urban murders committed with firearms.
In fact, at the time, Cuomo was trying to make gun manufacturers the “next big tobacco,” despite the fact that, unlike cigarettes, when used properly and safely, firearms aren’t a danger to anyone. And despite the fact that “keeping” and “bearing” firearms is specifically protected by the Second Amendment.
The plan was for gun manufacturers, who didn’t have nearly as deep of pockets as the big tobacco companies did, to yield to incremental gun control through litigation rather than legislation since Congress had little interest in most of the administration’s anti-gun proposals. At the time, Cuomo boldly warned gun companies that if they didn’t cooperate with the administration’s schemes, they’d suffer “death by a thousand cuts.” And he might have been correct.
Seeing the likely dire results of the efforts of Cuomo’s and a number of big-city mayors’ schemes—namely, gun companies going out of business, horribly damaging the Second Amendment—National Rifle Association leaders rolled up their sleeves and went to work. The NRA worked with pro-gun lawmakers in Congress to draft legislation to protect gun manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits holding them liable for criminal misuse of their products.
With much pushback from the Clinton Administration, anti-gunners in Congress and various gun-ban organizations, the fight wasn’t an easy one. But the effort eventually resulted in the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which was finally passed in 2005 and signed into law by President George W. Bush.
The claim that the law protects “bad actors” and gives “blanket immunity” to the gun industry, as Everytown claims in its shoddy piece of work, is patently false. The truth is both gun manufacturers and dealers can still be held liable for damages resulting from defective products, breach of contract, criminal misconduct and other actions for which they are directly responsible—just not for criminal misuse of their legal products. But Everytown will never tell you that.
Nor will cynical Democrat politicians. Even President Joe Biden has repeatedly lied about PLCAA over the past four years.
“If I get one thing on my list, if the Lord came down and said, ‘Joe, you get one of these,’ give me that one,” Biden said of repealing the PLCAA in an April 2021 Rose Garden ceremony. Later, during his 2022 State of the Union address, Biden stated: “Repeal the liability shield that makes gun manufacturers the only industry in America that can’t be sued—the only one! Imagine had we done that with the tobacco manufacturers.”
President Biden knows that’s a lie, and the folks at Everytown know that’s a lie. But bitterness dies hard when you have to look back at the major loss the NRA handed gun-ban advocates by seeing the PLCAA through to fruition nearly 20 years ago.
Go ahead and read the piece-of-trash “expose” from Everytown if you want. You’re nearly sure to come to the same conclusion I did. In fact, if that kind of work is what Bloomberg is funding through Everytown’s “Smoking Gun,” I won’t be surprised if he pulls the plug on the project sometime soon, given this latest poor effort.
In the end, the only good thing about the “exposé” is that it gave us the chance to set the record straight yet again. Thanks for that opportunity, Everytown!
And along comes sue happy Mexico following a path paved by the biggest sleazebags on earth. By way of turning citizens against a Constitutional Right Everytown owns and maintains the Defenseless Victim Pool. Gun Control adoring Everytown should be held monetarily liable for selling gullible people a bill of goods.
NRA chief says group on upswing after New York dissolution case ends
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/3258695/nra-chief-says-group-on-upswing-after-new-york-dissolution-case-ends/?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=offthepress&utm_campaign=home
Despite Spending Millions, Gun Control Groups Lost Big in 2024
https://restoration-news.com/despite-spending-millions,-gun-control-groups-lost-big-in-2024?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=offthepress&utm_campaign=home
We had a president named Biden?
The name of the president is up for debate. Sometimes it was Nancy Pelosi and sometimes it was Kamala Harris and sometimes it was Jill Biden, and all three of them hate each other. And when they could get enough lucid-happy pills into Joe Biden and prop him up he would play president for the cameras. Joe tended to spend me-time in dementia-ville.
Barry Soetoro ran the show @ Commies are us🙄
Barry’s third term.
Bull, Barry was an actor delivering lines on command for his bosses. Nothing more.
I wonder how many in the “gun community” and the drug l-e.g.al-iz.ati-o.n crowd, supported the government going after the tobacco business???
“I wonder how many in the “gun community” and the drug l-e.g.al-iz.ati-o.n crowd, supported the government going after the tobacco business???”
C’mon, Chris. Dropping a turd in the punch bowl is just mean.
But he’s not wrong. Years ago, Florida voted to “force” no smoking in restaurants and bars except in limited instances.
And that was in a state constitution amendment. So much for constitutions telling Government what they can’t do.
I’m not a smoker. And never was. And I have always believed in Liberty. And the responsibilities and consequences that go with it.
Florida and any state or city that pasted these anti-civil rights anti smoking laws. They are all just like Ad.o.lf Hi.tl.er.
Who was a non smoker like me. But he believed in using government force to force his anti Liberty views onto the population.
Tobacco may not have been popular with the n.a.z.i leadership, but the use of heroin was.
The “I’m better than you crowd” are very happy to support the rights of a few hundred American national s0-c.ia-li-s.ts. who want to protest in a Jewish neighborhood.
But those same smartest people in the room, don’t support the millions of private businesses with these smoking sections. They don’t support tobacco use.
But they do support heroin use. They support weed and crack cocaine use.
I don’t believe the drug le.g.al-iz.atio.n crowd has ever supported Liberty.
Speaking of smoking I see our ever protective government has decided there is to much nicotine in cigarettes.
What evil twisters.
Less nicotine means smoking more to get your fix.
More cigarettes bought, more tax revenue.
Yes sir it’s all about saving lives yup yup.
Saying the american anti-smoking crowd is acting like Ad.olf H.itl.er, is a true statement. Since he passed the first anti-smoking laws in the western world.
The s. oci.al-i.sts, national or international, they both want to control your life. Using government deadly force if necessary.
Im sure Bloomberg money is behind Mn. AG Ellison filing a lawsuit against Glock yesterday. This is the same guy that’s going after Hyundai/Kia for enticing our youth into a life of crime by making some of their cars too easy to steal. Also the same guy that is okay with DAs letting little hoodrat gangbangers holding a get out of jail free card for a litany of offenses.
My opinion is that it’s been filed to direct attention away from the state’s latest discovery of an ongoing multi hundred million dollar scam by his mus-lem brethren commiting fraud against SS and child welfare services by the same group behind the Feeding Our Future billion dollar fraud. Only this time, utilizing made-up autism cases.
I read it. It didnt say anything useful. The NRA was working to protect firearm industry from frivolous lawsuits by the antigun industry. No kidding. Good for the NRA and protecting the 2ndA.
Wonder where these “increasingly deadly” firearms are on the market? All I see are variations of the same guns with little change, such as the 1930s-era “high-capacity” 9mm pistol or the 1960s-era AR-15.
Weapons in common use is going to fly when the military are using phasers.
I wish the Supreme Court wouldn’t have went with the common use thing.
The Second Amendment was written so We the People could possess weapons of war, not Assualt gun look alike’s.
“The Second Amendment was written so We the People could possess weapons of war, not Assualt gun look alike’s.”
Why isn’t there any “pro-gun” organization using the original founders’ statements on the ability to fend off the standing army of a rogue US government?
2A is, first, formost, and importantly about “the People” retaining control over the central committee/government in extremis.
Once defense against tyranny is held to its purpose, every other armament use becomes a simple devolvement of the principle.
And the Second Amendment becomes absolute.
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