In the wake of many states trying to find a way around the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), other states are offering even more protection than that afforded to the industry under federal law.
And the problem is that too many people don't understand what's protected and what isn't.
The PLCAA, for example, shields the gun industry from lawsuits based on the actions of third parties and other frivolous lawsuits. If a gun made by a company blew up when you shot it, that's a different matter.
And most state laws kind of beef up this sort of thing.
That doesn't stop the media from trying to frame this as something else, even arguing that one company's support is far more nefarious than it might otherwise be:
A Florida bill would shield gun manufacturers from some liability — and it’s being pushed by a firearm company whose gun has faced scrutiny over the safety of one of its products.
Sig Sauer, a major gun manufacturer with U.S. headquarters in New Hampshire, has lobbied for HB 1551 amid ongoing court cases related to their pistol, the P320.
The bill would protect a company from liability for excluding certain safety or design features on weapons that are not required by federal law, like an external manual safety.
The P320 has been popular among law enforcement agencies and consumers since its introduction in 2014. But in cases across the country, users say the gun has fired on its own, leaving people with serious injuries.
Those incidents have led to lawsuits, million-dollar payouts and some law enforcement agencies abandoning the P320 for other service weapons.
Bobby Cox, a senior vice president with Sig Sauer, told lawmakers Tuesday that the bill would help with a “national phenomenon that is becoming detrimental to our mission.”
He said the cost of litigation takes away money the manufacturer could otherwise use on research and development for their military and law enforcement firearms.
“This bill codifies that simply because a pistol does not have one of these optional features does not inherently make it defective,” Cox said.
Of course, this is being framed as Sig Sauer backing the bill because it has lost lawsuits due to the lack of these safety features. Unfortunately for them, that's not why Sig keeps finding itself in court.
The P320's issues aren't because it lacks an external safety or anything like that. It's because there have been cases where a gun sitting in a holster just went off. We have this on video, too. Multiple instances of this happening.
That doesn't happen with Glocks, which also lack an external safety.
The issues with Sig are based on something with the design, most likely a case of little issues with tolerance stacking on one another until a gun might get jiggled a bit, and the striker hits the round, causing it to discharge.
That's not protected under Florida's bill.
If someone sues Sig because one of its guns lacks some external safety feature, that would be one thing, but it doesn't shield them from design problems, manufacturing problems, or anything like that, which results in an unintentional discharge.
The thing is, the media is more interested in demonizing Sig backing this bill than they are in actually understanding what it covers, why it was introduced, or anything like that.
Yet more evidence that no matter how much you hate the mainstream media, you don't hate them enough.
