➡ A long-standing lawsuit against gun manufacturers in Gary, Indiana, which aimed to hold them responsible for crimes committed with their products, has finally ended. This is seen as a significant victory for gun owners and the Second Amendment, as it prevents lawful companies from being held accountable for the misuse of their products by criminals. The case, which lasted for 26 years, was part of a larger attempt to impose gun control through the courts. The end of this lawsuit is a step towards preserving the right to bear arms and the industries that support it.
➡ In 2024, Indiana passed a law preventing cities and counties from suing firearm manufacturers and sellers, a law that was applied retroactively to an ongoing lawsuit by Gary, Indiana. Despite Gary’s argument that the law was unconstitutional, the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld it, effectively ending the lawsuit after 26 years. Critics argue this was an attempt to hold gun companies accountable for misuse by third parties, but supporters see it as a victory for the Second Amendment, arguing that rights shouldn’t be infringed based on the actions of criminals. They believe that this decision sends a message against using lawsuits to dictate firearm policy and blame lawful people for criminal acts.

26 years of anti-gun lawfare, what might just be the longest running anti-gun lawsuit in the history of the country, just collapsed. It’s a big win for gun owners. Hey everybody, what’s going on? My name is Jared. This is Guns and Gadgets, your premier source for Second Amendment News. And I’m coming at you with a story that should have every gun owner in America paying close attention. Because what just happened in Indiana is not just some local legal story out of the city of Gary. This is a major win against one of the oldest tricks in the anti-gun playbook.

This is about a 26 year attack. 26 years, an attack on the firearms industry finally hitting a dead end. Why would it take 26 years? This is about anti-gun politicians trying to use lawsuits to do what they could not do through the constitution, could not do through Congress, could not do through state legislatures, and could not do honestly in front of the American people. And more importantly, this is about the Second Amendment surviving another attempt to destroy it indirectly. Because let’s be very clear, right out of the gate here, the anti-gun lobby does not always come straight at your gun safe.

Sometimes they go after the manufacturer, sometimes they go after the distributor, sometimes they go after the local gun shop, sometimes they go after insurance companies or payment processors, banks, advertisement platforms, shipping companies, credit card companies, zoning boards, and every other pressure point they can find and we’ve seen it all through the Biden years. Because if they cannot ban the right directly, they will try to bankrupt the people who make that right practical. And that’s exactly what the city of Gary, Indiana tried to do more than a quarter century ago. So before we get into this, make sure that you hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell, and share this video with every gun owner you know because the mainstream media is not going to explain this the way it needs to be explained.

They’re going to frame this as accountability. They’re going to frame this as public safety. They’re going to frame this as gun violence prevention. But what it really was was lawfare, weaponized litigation, an attempt to financially bleed lawful American companies for the criminal acts of third parties. And folks, that’s not justice. That is tyranny wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. And before we discuss what happened, a quick shout out to the sponsor of today’s video, CMMG. If you’re serious about your Second Amendment rights, you should also be serious about the tools that you rely on, and that’s where CMMG comes in.

These guys and gals are known for innovation, reliability, and building some of the most versatile systems on the market today. Whether you’re looking at their radio delayed blowback platforms or dialing in your next build, or even your 22 conversions, CMMG is pushing the envelope in all the right ways. Check them out and use my new code, CMMGRules, one word, to save on your orders and support the companies that support your rights. Now let’s get back to the story, and let’s talk about what happened. The Indiana Supreme Court has finally declined to hear the city of Gary’s appeal in its long-running lawsuit against firearm manufacturers and sellers.

That means the city’s legal options have basically run out. This case, which started all the way back in 1999, is finally over. Let me think about that for a second. Bill Clinton was still president. The Columbine shooting had just happened earlier that year. The anti-gun lobby was riding a wave of political pressure, and cities all over the country were trying to sue gun companies into submission. The Gary, Indiana people decided to jump on that train. The city sued major firearm manufacturers and sellers, accusing them of creating a public nuisance and allegedly failing to prevent guns from ending up in criminal hands.

Now on the surface, to people who don’t understand how the law works and don’t understand how firearms commerce works, that may sound emotionally appealing. They say, well, crime happened and guns were used, someone has to pay. But that’s not how justice works in America. In this country, we punish the person who commits the crime. We punish the person who knowingly aids the crime. We punish the person who breaks the law. We do not take lawful manufacturers or lawful products, selling that product through a heavily regulated lawful distribution chain and hold them responsible because some criminal down the road decided to misuse that product.

That’s not accountability, that’s scapegoating. That’s like suing Ford because a drunk driver killed somebody with an F-150. It’s like suing Stanley because someone used a hammer as a weapon. It’s like suing Louisville Slugger because someone committed assault with a baseball bat. And it’s like suing Apple because criminals use iPhones to coordinate crimes. And the only reason this argument is treated differently with guns is because the target is not really liability. The target is the Second Amendment. Now remember, the firearms industry is not some unregulated wild west operation like the gun control crowd wants people to believe.

Federal firearms licensees are regulated. Manufacturers are regulated. Importers, dealers, background checks, all that’s regulated. ATF inspections exist. Serial numbers exist. Record keeping requirements exist. Straw purchasing is already illegal. Felons buying guns is already illegal. Selling guns knowingly to prohibited people is already illegal, as is trafficking guns, already illegal. So when the anti-gun side says, we just want accountability, what they’re really saying often is, we want to make lawful companies pay for crimes committed by people they never met, never sold directly to, and never controlled. And that’s not law. That’s extortion by litigation.

And the end game is simple. If you can bury gun companies, just bury them in the dirt. Crush them in legal fees. Discovery demands, depositions, documents, production, negative headlines, endless courtroom warfare, then you can force them to either settle, change their business practices, restrict distribution, raise prices, or just go out of business altogether. And if enough manufacturers or distributors and dealers are crushed under the weight of lawsuits, what happens to your right to keep and bear arms? It becomes a right on paper only. Because a right to keep and bear arms necessarily includes the ability to acquire those arms.

A right to keep and bear arms necessarily includes an industry capable of producing arms. A right to keep and bear arms necessarily includes lawful commerce in arms. And the Second Amendment does not protect a museum piece. It protects a living, breathing, practical right of the American people. And you cannot exercise that right if every company involved in making or selling firearms is sued into oblivion. And that’s why this case mattered. Now let’s go back to the timeline here. Gary, Indiana filed this lawsuit in August of 1999. The city claimed that gun manufacturers and sellers were responsible for harm caused by guns that ended up being used in crimes.

For years, this thing bounced around in the courts. There were dismissal attempts, appeals, procedural battles, discovery fights, more appeals, more litigation, more legal fees. And while this was dragging on, Congress saw what was happening across the country. This was not just Gary, Indiana. This was part of a larger national movement. Anti-gun cities and gun control groups were trying to impose gun control through the courts. They knew they could not always get the votes to ban guns. They knew the Constitution stood in their way. They knew millions of Americans would fight back if they tried to openly outlaw the firearms industry.

So they used lawsuits. They tried to turn the courts into a weapon. And in 2005, remember this started in 1999, in 2005, Congress responded with the Protection of Lawful Commerce and Arms Act, commonly known as PLACA or the PLCAA. And despite the lies you hear from the anti-gun crowd, PLACA does not give the firearms industry some magical immunity for actual wrongdoing. That is one of the biggest lies in the gun control movement. If a gun company makes a defective product, they can and often are sued. If a dealer knowingly violates the law, they can and often are sued.

If there is negligent entrustment, criminal misconduct, breach of contract, or other direct wrongdoing, PLACA has exceptions. But what PLACA does is stop lawsuits that try to blame lawful companies for the independent criminal misuse of their products by third parties. And that distinction matters. Because without that distinction, there is no limiting principle. If a manufacturer can be held liable every single time a criminal misuses a product, a lawful product, then every industry in America is at risk. But again, the anti-gun lobby does not want a neutral side.

They don’t want a neutral rule. They want a special rule for guns. They want to take a constitutionally protected product and treat it like contraband. They want to make firearms commerce so legally dangerous, so expensive, and so politically toxic that fewer companies are willing to participate. And if they succeed, and they have, there are many companies that were sued so hard that they’re gone now. Pomeranian, right? If these cities and towns succeed, the people who suffer, they’re not the criminals. Criminals will still steal guns. Criminals will still traffic guns.

Criminals will still ignore every single law on the books. The people who suffer are you and me. The law-abiding citizens. The single moms who want a handgun for protection. The retired veteran who wants to buy a rifle. The young couple who wants a shotgun for home defense. The small business owner who wants to protect his store. The farmer. The hunter. The concealed carrier. The new gun owner. The first-time buyer. The everyday American who wants to exercise a right that existed before the government and is protected by the Second Amendment. Now, fast-forward to Indiana. In 2024, Indiana passed a state law saying cities and counties cannot bring these lawsuits against firearm manufacturers, sellers, dealers, or trade associations.

Only the state can bring those claims. And the law was made retroactive, meaning it applied to Gary’s lawsuit, Gary, Indiana’s lawsuit. And, of course, Gary fought that. They argued the law was unconstitutional. They argued the legislature could not retroactively end their pending case. A trial court initially refused to dismiss the case, but then the Indiana Court of Appeals stepped in. The Court of Appeals upheld the law, said Gary had not shown that retroactive application violated some vested right and ordered the case dismissed. And then Gary tried to take it to the Indiana Supreme Court.

And now, the Indiana Supreme Court has said no. They declined to take the case, which means the Court of Appeals’ decision stands. And that means this lawsuit, after 26 years, is effectively dead. Now, the anti-gun side is furious. Brady, which supported Gary for this litigation, responded by claiming the city was denied its day in court and suggested this was about gun companies avoiding accountability. Brady Group, what a bunch of idiots. But that argument ignores the obvious. Gary had more than 25 years, more than 25 years of litigation, more than 25 years of courtroom process.

They’ve had 25 years worth of days in court, more than 25 years of legal maneuvering. And after all of that time, what was the central theory? That lawful gun companies should be held responsible for criminal misuse by third parties. That is the same bankrupt argument that the anti-gun lobby’s been pushing for decades. And folks, we need to call this what it is. It wasn’t just a lawsuit, this was a pressure campaign. This was an effort to use one city’s lawsuit to force changes on an entire industry. Because if one city can sue its way into controlling how guns are made, distributed, and sold, then every anti-gun city in America will try to do the same.

New York would do it, LA would do it, Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle. And before too long, you would not have a national firearms market governed by the Constitution and by legitimate laws passed through elected legislatures. You would have a patchwork of lawsuit driven gun control dictated by anti-gun city attorneys and activist judges and Bloomberg-funded legal teams. That’s not what’s called Republican government. That’s not the separation of powers. It’s not constitutional lawmaking. That’s regulation by lawsuit. And that’s exactly why preemption matters. State preemption laws exist because rights cannot survive if every city and county gets to invent its own gun control regime.

Imagine driving across Indiana or Tennessee or Massachusetts or Virginia or any other state, and every city, every town, had their own different rules about what guns can be sold, where they can be carried, and what parts are legal, what magazines are allowed, what training is required, what paperwork must be filed, and which manufacturers can be targeted in court. That’d be total chaos. And chaos is exactly what the anti-gun lobby wants. Because when the law is confusing, expensive and dangerous to navigate, a lot of people, ordinary people, just back away.

Businesses back away, dealers back away, manufacturers back away. And that’s how rights die without ever being formally repealed. They become too risky to exercise, too expensive to defend, too complicated to understand, too burdensome to practice, and that brings us right back to the core constitutional point. The Second Amendment says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It does not say the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall exist only if every anti-gun mayor agrees. It does not say that the right shall exist only if city governments cannot find a creative tort theory.

It does not say the right shall exist only if gun companies survive 26 years of politically motivated litigation. And it certainly does not say that criminals get to define the scope of your liberty. That’s one of the most dangerous ideas in modern gun control. They take the actions of criminals, then use those crimes as a weapon against the rights of the innocent. Some gang member commits murder, and suddenly they want to restrict your magazines. Some prohibited person illegally gets a gun, and suddenly they want to sue a manufacturer.

Some lunatic breaks existing laws, and suddenly they want to punish millions of peaceable Americans who had nothing to do with it. That’s not how the Constitution works. That’s not how our rights work. The Bill of Rights is not a privilege that vanishes when criminals behave badly. The First Amendment does not disappear because someone commits fraud using a phone. The Fourth Amendment does not disappear because police are investigating a serious crime. The Fifth Amendment does not disappear because government really, really wants a conviction. And the Second Amendment doesn’t disappear because anti-gun politicians are frustrated that criminals do not obey gun laws.

Now let’s talk about the hypocrisy. The same people who claim that they want to hold gun companies liable for criminal misuse of firearms almost never applies that same logic everywhere else. They don’t sue car companies every time a drunk driver kills someone. They don’t sue alcohol companies when someone drives drunk. They don’t sue kitchen knife manufacturers every time someone commits a stabbing. It’s crazy. They reserve that special standard for guns because guns are protected by the Second Amendment and they hate that protection. They hate that the Founders recognized the right of the people to be armed.

And they hate that the right is an individual right. They hate that Bruin reaffirmed that the government bears the burden when it tries to restrict that right. And they hate that Heller made clear that the Second Amendment protects arms in common use for lawful purposes. And they hate that American gun owners refuse to surrender. So when they lose in legislatures, they go to courts. And when they lose in courts, they go to agencies. And when they lose in agencies, they go to banks. And when they lose in banks, they go to insurance companies.

And then they go to public nuisance lawsuits. It just never, ever ends. And that’s why this Indiana victory matters. Because it sends a big bold message that you cannot harass the firearms industry forever and call it justice. You cannot bankrupt a constitutional right and call it public safety. You cannot blame lawful people for the acts of criminals and call it accountability. And you can’t use one city’s lawsuit to dictate firearm policy for an entire state. It’s insane. I’m glad this is over. I really am glad that this lawsuit is over. 26 years is a long enough time.

I mean, justice… You want justice? Target gangs, traffickers, straw purchasers, and people who actually commit crimes. Justice doesn’t mean suing Smith & Wesson, Glock, Beretta, Colt, and local dealers because the city has a crime problem that politicians failed to solve because their policies led to it. And that’s the hard truth. Don’t blame the industry. Blame the criminals. Guys and gals, I hope that you understand this lawsuit. I hope that you realize what a relief it is that it’s over. Not just for the city and the manufacturers that were being sued, but for the country as a whole.

Every manufacturer in the country was still watching this lawsuit because its goal was to take all of them out. I appreciate y’all, seriously, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for allowing me to do what I do for a living. This is my dream job, is to tell you about how our rights are being affected every single day and to expose those that are doing it. I appreciate y’all from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much. Stay armed, stay free, stay American, stay vigilant, and subscribe to this channel if you want more information about the constant attack on our Second Amendment rights.

I’ll see you on the next one. Take care. Thank you. [tr:trw].

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