Michigan House panel advances bills to strip gun industry immunity protections

LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan House panel on Wednesday advanced legislation that would remove liability protections for gun manufacturers and create a new pathway to bring litigation against the industry.

The legislation moved out of the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee along party lines and is headed next to the House floor for a vote of the full chamber.

Six other states have passed similar laws that repealed state immunity protections for gunmakers and offered a way to navigate around a federal law — the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act — that provides the same immunity for firearms manufacturers at the federal level. Those states are Maryland, New York, California, Delaware, Illinois and New Jersey.

The proposed bills would remove protections that have for years given the gun industry immunity that no other industry is afforded, said state Rep. Ranjeev Puri, a Canton Township Democrat who helped introduce the bills. He argued the changes to the law could move the gun industry toward more accountability and safe innovations.

"This bill would allow victims of gun violence and impacted communities to hold the gun industry accountable for irresponsible practices that have for years created dangerous conditions in the state of Michigan," Puri said.

State Rep. Kelly Breen, a Novi Democrat who helped introduce the bills, added: "These aren't about the Second Amendment so much as consumer protection."

State Rep. Andrew Fink, R-Adams Township, said he cannot think of another law that specifically spells out a cause of action against a manufacturer for producing a product to which there is a constitutional right. Firearms are inherently dangerous, Fink added, but the makers shouldn't be held responsible for their misuse.

"Obviously, if somebody commits a crime using a firearm, that person should be held responsible," said Fink, who is also an attorney. "But to hold a manufacturer responsible for the item they're manufacturing working the way it's intended to ... is essentially a shadow ban. That's what I think this legislation is really about, is trying to eliminate the firearms industry in Michigan."

But Kelly Sampson, senior policy counsel at the gun-violence prevention group Brady, argued the legislation only allowed for litigation specific to a gun seller, owner or manufacturer's failure to take reasonable measures to prevent a gun falling into the wrong hands — not the eventual actions taken by the individual who obtained the firearm. She gave the example of a gun store owner who clearly was aware that a potential firearm sale was a straw purchase and continued the transaction regardless.

"This is about the case, like what I just described, where the gun store does something unlawful, the gun store does something irresponsible," Sampson said.

Nick Buggia, state director for the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action, argued current federal and state laws providing gunmakers some level of immunity already allows for civil litigation if the firearm manufacturer or seller acts illegally. Immunity only kicks in when or if a legal purchase is used by a third party for illegal purposes, Buggia said.

He noted car manufacturers are not held to the same liability threshold that is being proposed in the House bills, even though their product is made with the knowledge that people may use the cars recklessly or drunkenly.

"The illegality of the driver’s actions breaks the chain of causation," Buggia said. "This is same protection PLACA (Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act) provides to the firearm industry."

The bill package passed Wednesday would repeal language currently in the law that provides immunity from civil litigation for gun manufacturers. Specifically, the legislation would delete about two pages of a law that say federally licensed firearm dealers are not liable for damages "arising from the use or misuse" of a gun if the sale was executed legally.

It also adds language creating a specific cause of action for civil suits against the gun industry if a manufacturer or seller was found to recklessly create a public nuisance through the "sale, manufacturing, importing or marketing" of a firearm-related product. The language requires gun makers, sellers and marketers to establish "reasonable controls" to prevent sales to a straw purchaser, trafficker or someone prohibited from possessing a firearm.

The bill would allow the attorney genral or any citizen to commence litigation against a firearm manufacturer and ask for injunctive relief (a halt to the business' activities); damages or restitution; and attorney fees. A resident filing suit against a gun manufacturer would have to notify the attorney general within five days and provide a copy of the complaint to the attorney general.

The legislation comes more than a year after the Democratic-led Michigan Senate, in the wake of the fatal Feb. 13, 2023 shooting at Michigan State University that left three students dead, also attempted to remove the legal protections for firearms dealers and manufacturers by inserting the removal into a law requiring the safe storage of firearms.

The Senate eventually backtracked on the elimination of the immunity language, in part because federal law still made it all but impossible to bring civil action against the gun industry.

The difference with the House legislation that moved from committee Wednesday is that the House bills provide a specific pathway to bring a civil suit while navigating around federal immunity protections for gunmakers.

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