The gunners will tell you that the PLCAA does not prevent suits IF the firearm is defective in manufacture or IF the gun seller KNEW he was selling to someone with bad intent.
BULLSHIT.
To begin with, the PLCAA provides the gun industry with an automatic deep pocket defense. When accused of wrong doing the defendant's insurance company pays the legal fees, meaning that unless the plaintiff has access to $100s of thousands the complaint will die from lack of prosecution.
Elizabeth Shirley sued Baxter Gun for selling a gun to her estranged husband, a felon, who within hours used it to kill her 10 year old son and himself. It took 12 years and a trip through the Kansas appeals system all the way to the Kansas Supreme Court to win $132,000 in damages. The evidence that finally broke the case? Testimony that the seller asked, 'Have you been a bad boy?' to which the felon replied, 'Yes, that's why Mom is filling out the paperwork.'
Secondarily, defect is defined by the manufacturer. If a firearm discharges during holstering or upholstering because the trigger pull (pressure necessary to discharge) and the creep (distance the trigger must move) causing an injury to the leg and thigh happens so often that it actually has a name (Glock leg syndrome) the maker simply declares that the gun is designed to do that. Suddenly no basis for a case.
Had the General Motors compact cars with "defective" ignition switches that killed 175 people and injured 275 more had been a Glock handgun the law suits and recall of 800,000 cars that eventually costs GM $2 billion would not have happened because the switches were actually operating within design specs.
Those are just two examples of how the PLCAA is so wrong and why those who defend it are culpable for the death and injury caused by guns.
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