John Culhane is distinguished professor of law at Delaware Law School, where he teaches courses in constitutional and family law.In 2012, after 26 people—including 20 first-grade children—were gunned down by a semi-automatic weapon at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Congress briefly considered legislation that would have strengthened the requirement of background checks for gun purchasers. The measure died in the Senate.
So Congress bowed to the NRA and passed the PLCAA. The law not only ruled out most future claims, but also ordered allclaims to be dismissed. It’s important to understand the uniqueness of this legislation. Congress rarely tramples on state tort law so dramatically, and never without offering some compensation scheme as a replacement.
The court then held that this state statute was indeed “applicable” to the sale of the fatal weapon to the shooter, and therefore not barred by the PLCAA. There’s nothing in the plain language of the law that suggests otherwise, and the court wasn’t persuaded that the Congressional Statement of Findings and Purpose, nor general rules of statutory interpretation, should lead to a different result.