Ending nine years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear New York City's request to continue a lawsuit that tried to hold firearms manufacturers responsible for the criminal misuse of firearms. Among the gun makers in the suit were Beretta USA Corp., Smith & Wesson Holding Corp., Colt's Manufacturing Co. LLC, Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Glock GmbH.
A key issue here was a federal law, the Protection of the Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which banned most lawsuits against firearm manufacturers.
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), “The city's lawsuit was originally filed in 2000 by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and was continued by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. After the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was passed by Congress in 2005, a federal judge threw out the New York lawsuit. Then in April of 2008, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision, saying the new law was constitutional. New York's final recourse was to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court,” and that has failed.
“We are very pleased by today's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to not review lower appellate court rulings that dismissed cases based on the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,” said Steve Sanetti, NSSF president. “These baseless lawsuits against responsible, law-abiding companies are the type that Congress intended to prevent by passing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.”
