Rogue gun manufacturers and dealers who negligently or recklessly sell firearms in Illinois must be held accountable to more effectively reduce gun violence in our communities. To do so, policymakers need to clarify the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, or Consumer Fraud Act, to ensure that the gun industry is held to the same basic principles of civil justice as everyone else.
Firearms are now the leading cause of death for American children and teens, surpassing automobile accidents and cancer. And while gun violence is a public health crisis all across the United States, Black and Latino communities are disproportionately affected. By way of illustration, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Illinois in 2021, African Americans were almost 40 times more likely than white Americans to die by gun homicide. Although gun violence overwhelmingly afflicts the Black community, it is important to note that these communities are seldom where firearms are being manufactured or legally sold.
Last year, as the result of a lawsuit filed by the Illinois attorney general, Kansas City and the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revoked the federal firearms license of JA Industries, a firearms dealer whose operators allegedly supplied illegal gun traffickers with cheaply made guns often used in robberies, carjackings and other criminal activity.
This dealer had operated under the banner of Jimenez Arms until they were sued and filed bankruptcy to evade liability. The revocation of their license was one small success, but more tools are needed to deal with firearms dealers and manufacturers engaging in unlawful activities while evading accountability.
For far too long, bad actors in the firearm industry have employed cunning marketing practices and promotions that are attractive to young people. There are also dealers who knowingly supply guns to straw purchasers or individuals who are ineligible to possess firearms.
To shield themselves from liability, unscrupulous firearm industry members have wrongly sought immunity under a federal law known as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA. However, contrary to popular perception, the immunity in PLCAA is not absolute. The law specifically permits civil actions to be brought when a member of the industry knowingly violates a state law applicable to the sale and marketing of a firearm.
States throughout the country have long used their state consumer protection laws to hold corporate actors responsible for systematically engaging in unfair and deceptive practices. As a result, state consumer protection actions brought by state attorneys general have forced long-term, industrywide change and protections for the public at large in industries such as big tobacco, predatory mortgage and student lending, and auto manufacturers.
More recently, attorneys general have successfully used their consumer protection laws to pursue actions against pharmaceutical industry members that have contributed to the nationwide opioid crisis, netting billions of dollars in multistate settlements to abate the opioid epidemic and obtaining court-ordered reform to industry practices.
As with these other prominent industries, it is time for policymakers in Illinois to clarify that the state’s Consumer Fraud Act can indeed be used to check the harmful practices of rogue members of the firearm industry. This is not a crusade against gun manufacturers at large and not an attack on lawful gun owners. Rather, this measure would make clear that bad actors within the industry — particularly those that target youths, illegal straw purchasers and others who are ineligible to possess firearms — are not exempt from our state law’s restrictions on unfair and deceptive conduct and are held accountable for contributing to the gun violence that ravages our communities.
Illinois would not be alone in clarifying the law in this way. In recent years, at least four other states have updated their respective laws to ensure that the firearms industry can be held financially accountable for negligent practices. The potential for this type of accountability provides a strong incentive for the firearms industry to use responsible business practices in manufacturing and selling their guns, practices that many in the industry already use.
This change would also put the firearm industry on equal footing as all other consumer products in the state, no better or worse, from an oversight point of view.
