Can Suing Gun Manufacturers Reduce Gun Violence?

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Barack, Washington, Wickenden, News, Obama, Politics, Wnyc, Lizza, President

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2022

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

Gun manufacturers are the only industry explicitly protected by federal statute from liability lawsuits. Carmakers and cigarette companies can be taken to court if their products or marketing endanger the public. But a 2005 law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (P.L.C.A.A.) has made it very difficult to sue a gunmaker. Jonathan Lowy has. He’s the chief counsel and vice-president of legal at Brady, one of the country’s oldest advocacy groups against gun violence. Faced with a hostile Supreme Court and a Senate filibuster, Lowy believes civil litigation is a path forward for gun-control advocates. Speaking with Michael Luo, who is this week’s guest host and the editor of newyorker.com, Lowy explains his strategy of slowly chipping away at the P.L.C.A.A. to change how guns are made, marketed, and sold.

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1:11.8	Welcome to the political scene. I'm Michael Luo, editor of New Yorker.com.
1:17.2	A grocery store, an elementary school, a 4th of July parade. Mass shootings in America are a daily
1:26.1	occurrence at this point. It's a truly depressing and terrifying reality.
1:31.3	In serious and wide-reaching gun control measures seem impossible to enact in the United States.
1:38.3	It's easy to feel a sense of despair about America's gun problem, but there are paths forward. One of them
1:46.1	involves litigation similar to the kind used against tobacco companies in the 2000s. Could
1:52.5	we hold gun companies liable when their products cause mass death? I'm joined today by Jonathan
1:58.8	Lowy, the Chief Counsel and Vice President of Legal at Brady,
2:02.3	one of the country's oldest advocacy groups against gun violence.
2:06.4	Hi, John.
	...

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