During interim joint legislative committee meetings last year, lawmakers repeatedly stated that they wanted to target UNLAWFUL manufacturers and sellers of ILLEGAL firearms with legislation in the 30-day session. House Bill 114, a measure currently making its way through the legislative process, sweeps up LAWFUL and LEGITIMATE firearms industry members in a web of subjective, vague civil law that applies only to them and no other industry – for now. HB 114 provides a model that can and will be used to bankrupt any industry disfavored by certain elected officials and activist groups.
Bad actors in any industry who engage in unconscionable, unfair, or deceptive business practices are already held to account by the state’s Unfair Trade Practices Act. Federally licensed gun manufacturers and retailers who violate firearms laws commit federal felonies and face prison time, heavy fines, and revocation of their license by ATF.
HB 114 creates inventive public and private causes of action that could bankrupt the firearms industry.The bill declares the failure to exercise undefined “reasonable controls and practices” to be a public nuisance, terms the bill author admits would be left up to the courts to interpret. The state attorney general or any district attorney may bring a civil action to abate the nuisance and seek civil penalties of $5,000 per violation. Lawsuits brought by private citizens to do the same would have no award limitations, nor would those legal actions require a show of actual harm or damages by the plaintiffs. Court costs and attorney fees would be awarded to prevailing plaintiffs, but not to successful defendants, setting up a low-risk-high-reward playing field for trial lawyers and anti-gun activists.