Availability of Litigation as a Public Health Tool for Firearm Injury Prevention: [View all]

Comparison of Guns, Vaccines, and Motor Vehicles

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), enacted in 2005, grants the firearm industry broad immunity from liability. The PLCAA not only prevents most people from receiving compensation for their firearm-related injuries, it erodes litigation’s ability to serve its public health role of providing manufacturers with a financial incentive to make their products safer.

When the viability of the vaccine industry was threatened in the 1980s, Congress provided limited protection from liability and also established the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The liability of nearly all other products, for example motor vehicles, is governed by traditional common law principles.

The absence of both litigation and product safety rules for firearms is a potentially dangerous combination for the public’s health.

ON OCTOBER 26, 2005, President Bush signed a new law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA),1 with important implications for public health. Under the PLCAA, many people injured by firearms and ammunition will not be able to hold makers or sellers of these products accountable in court for their injuries. Instead, the PLCAA grants firearm makers and dealers broad immunity from liability. Because litigation can help to prevent some deaths and injuries, a valuable tool to respond to the public health problem of firearm-related violence in the United States has been seriously eroded.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2040374/

The American Journal of Public Health supports the findings of most Liberals and thinking Americans that the PLCAA is a travesty of justice. It is also a danger to public health in that the gun manufacturers are not held to the same standard as other consumer products for safety and accountability.

This product of the right-wing NRA/ILA/ALEC cabal (and its apologists) directly contributes to the on-going gun violence epidemic in our nation's communities, and our standing as the world's leader in gun injuries and deaths.