Supreme Court Petition from Pro-Second Amendment Groups
On Monday, two organizations advocating for Second Amendment rights requested the Supreme Court to dismiss a lawsuit against a gun manufacturer.
According to a press release from the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C., in April 2022, Raymond Spencer fired over 200 rounds from an apartment towards a school, injuring four individuals, one of whom, Karen Lowy, subsequently filed a lawsuit against several firearm companies related to the shooting. The National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) contended that the lawsuit should be dismissed in a brief they submitted earlier this week.
“This argument confuses a long-standing method of firearm marketing with a causal link to a specific crime,” the organizations noted in their filing. “Military themes have historically been associated with civilian firearm sales justifiably, as the Second Amendment underscores the necessity of a militia.”
“The relationship between exercising the right to bear arms and the military’s use of those arms has consistently been interconnected,” the organizations added. “During colonial and Founding periods, militiamen were often responsible for providing their own weapons suitable for military purposes.”
Despite the federal district judge dismissing the case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of Lowy, prompting the firearm manufacturers to appeal to the Supreme Court in August, highlighting a disagreement with three other federal appellate courts. When lower courts disagree on similar legal questions, the Supreme Court is more inclined to intervene to settle the “circuit split.”
“The Fifth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits maintain that for a plaintiff to establish injuries caused by a third party not present in court, they must prove that the defendant’s questionable actions had a decisive or coercive effect on that third party,” the manufacturers’ petition stated. “However, the Fourth Circuit rejected this criterion, aligning with the Second Circuit, which allows for traceability as long as a plaintiff plausibly claims that the defendants’ actions had some ‘predictable effect’ on the individual who ultimately caused the harm. Since that ruling, the Ninth Circuit has now adopted this latter perspective.”
This has resulted in a 3-3 disagreement on the standard for determining traceability in situations where a party other than the defendant directly caused the plaintiff’s injuries, the petition further explained.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently dismissed New Jersey’s attempt to prevent the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) from pursuing a lawsuit against a law that enables the state to sue gun retail stores and manufacturers. This decision was made public on September 8. Previously, Congressional Democrats had focused on firearm manufacturers over their marketing, with Democratic representatives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York and Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts alleging that the ads contained “white supremacist” imagery during a hearing in 2022.
