Chapter 4 addresses the radical change in the legal landscape of firearms litigation as a consequence of Congressional enactment of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (2005) (PLCAA). The chapter traces the history of events leading to and precipitating the firearms industry and its legislative allies to introduce and enact the major statute conferring nearly blanket immunity from suit on the entire firearms industry. The discussion sets forth the constituent parts of PLCAA, including its statement of purposes, findings, definitions, and the six exceptions to immunity from suit. The chapter suggests that after 2005 PLCAA effectively stemmed the tide of firearms litigation and references the plaintiffs’ difficulties in invoking the PLCAA exceptions – to be discussed in more detail in ensuing chapters. The discussion notes the conceptual and doctrinal PLCAA victory the Sandy Hook Elementary School plaintiffs achieved in invoking PLCAA’s predicate statute exception and the implications of that judicial victory. The chapter closes with a discussion of the repeated unsuccessful legislative attempts by gun control advocates in Congress to repeal PLCAA.

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.