Gun-rights groups are urging the Supreme Court to throw out a lawsuit aiming to hold a group of gunmakers liable for advertisements they made about their firearms that victims of a crime claim inspired a shooter.
The high court has been petitioned to hear Daniel Defense v. Lowy, a case filed by victims of an April 2022 shooting in the District of Columbia against gunmakers over advertisements that the victims say “deceptively and unfairly marketed” their firearms “to appeal to the impulsive, risk-taking tendencies of civilian adolescent and post-adolescent males.” The victims’ lawsuit, filed in federal court in Virginia, specifically pointed to the “warrior mentality” depicted in many of the advertisements, which it claims directly inspired the shooter. A federal district judge initially tossed the lawsuit, but a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit revived it, leading gun manufacturers and their allies to the Supreme Court to ask the justices to throw out the case for good.
“Plaintiffs are victims of a horrific shooting committed by a deeply disturbed individual,” reads the Supreme Court petition filed by the group of gunmakers. “They would undoubtedly be entitled to recompense against the perpetrator of that attack had he not chosen to take his own life. But plaintiffs instead decided to try to punish the firearms industry for his crimes, suing more than a dozen manufacturers of firearms and related products—every company that makes any such product the shooter ever purchased.”
The coalition of gunmakers claims that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a 2005 law that largely protects gunmakers from liability for how individuals use their products, should foreclose the lawsuit, adding that they played no part in the 2022 shooting at the heart of the case. The gunmakers urged the Supreme Court to take up the case and reverse the ruling, saying the 4th Circuit’s decision is “egregiously wrong” and warning it could open the door to broad lawsuits against weapons manufacturers for their marketing.
Two key gun rights groups, the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation, filed a brief supporting the gunmakers’ request for review to the Supreme Court, arguing the 4th Circuit’s ruling “mistakes a centuries-old form of firearms advertising for a causal connection to a particular crime.”
“Military themes have long accompanied civilian firearms commerce appropriately so, since the Second Amendment itself declares the necessity of the militia,” the groups’ brief said, noting the long association between military and warrior themes and guns throughout the country’s history.
The victims of the 2022 shooting initially declined to respond to the petition filed to the Supreme Court, but the high court requested a response from them earlier this month. The high court could decide whether to take up the case for oral arguments later this year.
SUPREME COURT ALLOWS THIRD-COUNTRY DEPORTATIONS TO CONTINUE AHEAD OF DECEMBER ORAL ARGUMENTS
The Supreme Court has generally shielded gunmakers from broad claims of liability for how their firearms are used by individuals, including by tossing a lawsuit brought by Mexico against a group of gunmakers claiming they were aiding and abetting gun sales, which were being funneled to drug cartels.
The high court will weigh a major Second Amendment case later this year when it hears oral arguments over the legality of sweeping “assault weapons” bans during its December sitting. The Supreme Court will consider whether laws in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, which ban various semiautomatic rifles, including popular AR-15 firearms, violate the constitutional right to bear arms. A ruling in the case is expected by the end of June 2027.