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2 - Suing the Firearms Industry

The Failure of Traditional Tort Litigation through the Twenty-First Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2025

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

Chapter 2 locates the history of firearms litigation over the past sixty years as a progression through four distinction waves, in the context of the arc of mass tort litigation. The chapter surveys initial gun litigation in the 1960s–1970s based on conventional tort theories sounding in negligence and product defect, noting that virtually all these lawsuits failed. During the 1980s and 1990s, firearms litigation followed the mass tort pattern of attempted aggregation of claims, but courts still did not allow these suits to progress. The second wave of firearms litigation occurred in the early twentieth century, following the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. This new litigation model was based on governmental entity lawsuits seeking redress for communities harmed by gun violence. The third wave of gun litigation occurred after Congressional enactment of PLCAA in 2005. Plaintiffs in these PLCAA suits sought relief under PLCAA’s six exceptions. These suits also largely failed to gain traction. And the fourth and current wave of firearms litigation post-2019, after the successful Sandy Hook litigation, is being pursued by state attorneys general under new, targeted consumer protection and public nuisance accountability statutes.

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Chapter
Information
Outgunned No More
The New Era of Firearms Industry Accountability
, pp. 31 - 52
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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