Judge blocks California law allowing suits against gunmakers

SAN DIEGO (CN) — A federal judge in San Diego has for now blocked a California law allowing residents and local governments to sue businesses that manufacture, sell and market guns and accessories that the state deems “abnormally dangerous.”

That law, the Firearm Industry Responsibility Act, was passed by the state legislature and championed by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom as a way to hold the firearm industry accountable for perennial mass shootings and gun violence across the country. The bill aims to create a “standard of conduct" for the industry, including by banning the use of products that make guns more suitable for use in assaults. The bill also bans marketing guns to minors.

Enter the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearm trades association that last year sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta. In its lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, the group claims the law violates their Second and First Amendment rights as well as the Commerce Clause, a constitutional power granted to the U.S. Congress to regulate commerce. The clause also restricts individual states from hindering interstate trade.

That latter argument appeared most persuasive to U.S. District Judge Andrew Schopler, a Biden appointee. “Plaintiff’s surest march to victory is under the banner of the dormant Commerce Clause,” he wrote in an order from Wednesday preliminarily stopping California from enforcing the law.

In his order, Schopler spins a story about a hypothetical manufacturer of young-model rifles and AR-style long guns based in Tennessee, where the production and distribution of those guns are perfectly legal under their state law.

The manufacturer then ships those guns to Yuma, Arizona, a city on the border of California, where they’re stolen and used to commit crimes in California. Under the Firearm Industry Responsibility Act, the makers of those guns could be sued by someone in the state because their “abnormally dangerous” guns were used in it — even though they might have never even been to California.

“Because the ‘abnormally dangerous’ firearm rule reaches beyond California’s borders and directly regulates out-of-state commercial transactions, it likely runs afoul of the dormant Commerce Clause,” Schopler wrote.

Schopler denied the plaintiff’s request for preliminary relief due to lack of standing.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation is involved in a lawsuit fighting a similar law in New York.

“We are thankful the court enjoined the state from suing members of the firearm industry under this unconstitutional law that attempts to use the real threat of liability on commerce beyond California’s borders and impose its policy choices on its sister states,” Lawrence G. Keane, the senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation and its general counsel, stated in a press release.

Attorneys for the National Shooting Sports Foundation did not immediately responded to requests for comment.

“We are pleased the district court agreed that the plaintiffs lack standing to pursue most of their challenges to AB 1594," wrote a spokesperson for the California Attorney General in an email, using the State Assembly’s label for the Firearm Industry Responsibility Act. “The court did enter a limited preliminary injunction with respect to the law’s provisions regarding ‘abnormally dangerous’ firearm products under Civil Code section 3273.51(c). We disagree with that aspect of the court’s ruling and are considering our options for continuing to defend this important law.”