Heidi Li FeldmanImportant development in holding gun industry civilly accountable for their role in gun violence. The Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from gun makers who sought to invalidate New York’s statute grounding lawsuits against firearms industry members who create a public nuisance. News report at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-turns-away-challenge-new-york-firearms-liability-law-rcna349068. Fuller analysis in this 🧵. 1/ #LawFedi
New York state was the first to enact a specialized statute to serve as the kind of predicate law that makes some victims of gun violence and some state AGs able to sue firearms industry actors for irresponsibly making, marketing, and selling guns. See this, by me, for more about these “new wave” statutes. https://yalelawjournal.org/article/what-it-takes-to-write-statutes-that-hold-the-firearms-industry-accountable-to-civil-justice 2/
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the major gun industry trade association, and individual gun manufacturers have been suing every state with a law like this, as part of the industry’s decades long effort to have itself put totally beyond accountability for causing firearms-inflicted injuries. 3/
A federal trial court dismissed the NSSF/gun manufacturers’ challenge to New York State’s law. The court ruled that the law is specifically applicable to the firearms industry, that federal law limiting civil lawsuits against the industry did not rule out suits based on a law like New York’s, and that the NY law is not unconstitutionally vague. 3/
The federal trial court held that a statute like New York’s does not meaningfully implicate 2nd Amendment rights and that the statute’s use of public nuisance law, reasonable conduct requirements, and the law of false and deceptive advertising all made the statute sufficiently concrete to defeat any vagueness challenge. 4/
In short, the trial court’s decision rejected every kind of argument the gun industry has advanced against gun industry specific statutes making firearms industry actors civilly liable when they fail to act responsibly in the manufacture, marketing, and sale of their wares.
Of course the NSSF and the gun maker plaintiffs appealed. 5/
(The trial court’s opinion is at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nynd.131127/gov.uscourts.nynd.131127.46.0_2.pdf)
The 2nd Circuit upheld the trial court’s dismissal, on the same grounds the trial court relied upon. https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/22-1374/22-1374-2025-07-10.pdf?ts=1752157809 The NSSF and the gun maker plaintiffs appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, the Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari, meaning it will not review the Second Circuit opinion.
While this doesn’t mean the Roberts Court will ultimately uphold laws like New York’s, it does suggest that the Roberts Court is not eager to invalidate them on their face. 6/
The Supreme Court could eventually invalidate how states apply firearms industry accountability laws but by today’s rejection of a review of a facial challenge may encourage additional states to pass these laws.
In the medium term, today’s rejection is going to further spur the firearms industry to argue that the 2nd Amendment itself protects them from civil accountability. This is the issue my currrent scholarship in progress addresses. 7/7
Michael Gemar@heidilifeldman Are you surprised by the SC (in)action? I would have thought they would be happy to further cut down gun restrictions.
@michaelgemar I believe the Supreme Court is awaiting a different kind of case, one where the industry argues that the Second Amendment itself shields them from civil liability. Some of the present judges on the Court would love to hold that it does.
@heidilifeldman Is there a reason that wasn’t the argument industry made here?
@michaelgemar Mostly, bc of timing. In subsequent challenges to other states’ firearms responsibility acts, the NSSF and other industry actors have started making the 2A argument. I think that in the challenge to NY’s law, NSSF hadn’t thought to raise the argument.
@heidilifeldman Thanks for the analysis!