National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc., et al. v. Letitia James, Attorney General of New York

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, 15 U.S.C. §§7901-7903, was “enacted … to halt a flurry of lawsuits attempting to make gun manufacturers pay for the downstream harms resulting from misuse of their products.” Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, 605 U.S. 280, 298 (2025). To that end, the PLCAA generally bars lawsuits that seek to hold firearms industry members liable for harms caused by criminals who misuse products that they lawfully manufactured or sold. While that bar has some exceptions, including one that permits a narrow subset of lawsuits grounded in knowing violations of certain laws, this Court expressly cautioned against reading that so-called “predicate exception” to provide “a capacious way out of PLCAA.” Id. at 299. Yet in the decision below, the Second Circuit did just that. It held that the predicate exception green-lights the very same tort-style suits that Congress enacted the PLCAA to foreclose, so long as a state codifies general tort-law principles in a statute that singles out the firearms industry, instead of requiring parties to pursue such claims under common-law causes of action. That decision flouts bedrock interpretive principles, defies the explicit will of Congress, and creates a circuit split. The question presented is: Whether the PLCAA’s predicate exception allows parties to bring the same common-law-style suits against firearms industry members that Congress enacted the PLCAA to prohibit, so long as states codify those general common-law principles in a statute that applies to commerce in arms.