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5 - The Futility of Firearms Litigation under PLCAA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2025

Linda S. Mullenix
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
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Summary

Chapter 5 explores in detail the largely failed attempts of plaintiffs’ lawyers representing victims of gun violence to sue firearms defendants after Congressional enactment of PLCAA in 2005. The chapter discusses two types of challenges that plaintiffs’ attorneys raised when gun defendants invoked PLCAA as an immunity shield from litigation. The first universe of challenges embraced various constitutional challenges including arguments based on the First, Fifth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendments; Article I of the Constitution; the Commerce Clause; separation of powers doctrine; state sovereignty; federalism; and the takings clause. The discussion then turns to an analysis of the plaintiffs’ repeated failures to pursue their firearms litigation by invoking the six PLCAA exceptions from immunity, including challenges based on negligent entrustment, negligence, negligence per se, design defect, failure to warn, breach of implied warranty of merchantability, and products liability. The chapter ends with an analysis of the plaintiffs’ attorneys repeated attempts to invoke PLCAA’s predicate statute exception, finally culminating successfully in the Connecticut Sandy Hook Elementary School firearms litigation.

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Chapter
Information
Outgunned No More
The New Era of Firearms Industry Accountability
, pp. 90 - 108
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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