DENVER — Mass shootings in America invariably raise questions of fault. The police’s delayed response outside an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. A district attorney’s failure to prosecute the alleged Club Q shooter a year before five were killed in the LGBTQ nightclub.
That finger of blame, however, rarely lands on the manufacturer of the guns used in the massacres.
Lawmakers in Colorado and at least six other states are considering changing that, proposing bills to roll back legal protections for gun manufacturers and dealers that have kept the industry at arm’s length from questions of blame.
California, New York, Delaware and New Jersey have passed similar legislation in the last three years.
A draft version of Colorado’s bill, expected to be introduced Thursday, not only repeals the state’s 2000 law — which broadly keeps firearm companies from being held liable for violence perpetrated with their products — but also outlines a code of conduct that, in part, targets how companies design and market firearms.
Colorado is joined by Hawaii, New Hampshire, Virginia, Washington, New Mexico and Maryland, which are considering similar bills.
While the firearm industry is still largely shielded from liability under federal law, the bill in Colorado would make it easier for victims of gun violence to file civil suits, such as the one lodged against Remington in 2015 — the company that made the rifle used in the the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut.
Last year, Remington settled with the families of those killed in the shooting for $73 million after the families accused the company of targeting younger, at-risk males in advertising and product placement in violent video games.
States that already have the law in place, however, are now facing legal challenges or threats of lawsuits from national gun rights groups, in part, because the federal law passed by Congress in 2005 already gives the gun industry broad legal immunity.
“We may forget how unusual and bizarre this is to provide this exemption from accountability,” said Ari Freilich, state policy director for the gun control advocacy group Giffords, who argues that the federal law allows states some control over the industry’s legal liability.
This bill would “empower victims of gun violence to have their day in court and be able to show that the gun industry may have failed to take reasonable precautions to avoid harm,” Freilich said.