California governor passes law that allows gun violence victims to sue firearm manufacturers

‘They can no longer hide from the mass destruction that they have caused,’ Gov Gavin Newsom says

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a law that will now allow for gun violence victims in the state to sue firearm companies in civil suits when their products are used in a violent crime.

“It’s well known that nearly every industry is held to account when their products cause harm or injury. All except one – the gun industry,” the California governor said in a statement released on Tuesday alongside the bill’s passage. “Today, California is going to change that. They can no longer hide from the mass destruction they have caused.”

The bill, which was sent to the Democratic governor by state lawmakers ahead of the summer recess, was one of more than a dozen adding to California’s already strict gun regulations.

On Tuesday, the governor also announced that gun makers and dealers in California would now be required to block the sales of firearms to any individual they have “reasonable cause to believe is at substantial risk” of using the product illegally or with the intent of harming themselves or others.

The pair of bills passed combine to tighten California’s firearm laws, which are considered by the Giffords Law Center to have the strictest gun safety measures in the country.

The recently passed Firearm Industry Responsibility Act, which enables victims to sue gun manufacturers in civil suits, utilizes an exemption to bypass the 2005 federal statute which protects gun manufacturers from lawsuits when they’re products are used in illegal activities.

“If you’ve been hurt or a family member is a victim of gun violence you can now go to court and hold the makers of these deadly weapons accountable,” said the governor in a video address celebrating the bill. “Our kids, families and communities deserve to live without the worry of gun violence,” he said, adding that he hopes with the recent passage of this bill, “gunmakers will finally be held to account for their role in this crisis”.

Phil Ting, a California assembly member who co-authored the bill, cited recent mass shootings, such as the racially charged Buffalo, New York massacre that left 10 people dead and the attack on an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas where 19 children were shot and killed, as motivators to get his bill across the governor’s desk as soon as possible.

“Gun violence is now the leading cause of death among kids and teens in the United States, surpassing car accidents,” Assemblymember Ting said in a press release, citing a recent study from The New England Journal of Medicine which found that gun-related injuries in 2020 claimed 4,300 young people’s lives, which was a jarring 29 per cent jump from the year before - and more than twice as high as the relative increase when compared to the US general population.

“For far too long, the firearms industry has enjoyed federal immunity from civil lawsuits, providing them no incentive for them to follow our laws. Hitting their bottom line may finally compel them to step up to reduce gun violence by preventing illegal sales and theft.”

Since the beginning of 2022, there have been over 314 mass shootings carried out across the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit group with accompanying database that categorises a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.

The bill’s passage, intended to strengthen gun safety laws in the state, comes on the heels of the US Supreme Court striking down a New York law that made it more difficult for individuals to conceal a firearm outside the home, a decision that could have knock-on effects of weakening gun safety laws in major cities across the country.

It also arrives just one month after US President Joe Biden signed into law a bipartisan bill that some consider to be the most significant piece of federal legislation to address gun violence since the 1994 ban on assault weapons, which expired in 2005.