When gun manufacturers or dealers face civil liability for misuse of firearms, the liability costs eventually shift to investors (shareholders or owners), liability insurers, commercial lenders, or creditors (the debts they own now carry more risk), and indirectly to future customers, who may face price increases. Financial institutions (which I will call “banks,” though this […]
In recent years, some two dozen states have enacted laws requiring private property owners to allow employees, customers, and others to bring in guns or store them on their land and buildings. Variously known as “parking-lot laws” and “gun-at-work” laws, such regulations are a serious violation of property rights. In many cases, they may also […]
A three judge panel of the Fifth Circuit upheld the federal bump stock ban yesterday. In a post last Wednesday, I noted how the Sixth Circuit en banc had split evenly on the legality of the bump stock ban, leaving in place the trial court’s decision upholding the regulation. The question doesn’t appear to be […]
As I mentioned earlier this week, the en banc Sixth Circuit failed to reach consensus on the legality of the Trump Administration’s ban on bump stock devices, which convert semi-automatic firearms into weapons that can approximate the rate of fire of an automatic firearm. (If you’re unfamiliar with the operation of bump stocks, I’ve found […]
Last week, in Barris v. Stroud Township, a divided intermediate appellate court in Pennsylvania invalidated a local ordinance restricting firearm discharge in the city outside recognized exceptions. That ordinance, citing “the density of the population in the Township of Stroud” found it “necessary that the discharging of firearms be regulated for the protection of the […]
In a break with other circuits, on March 25 the Sixth Circuit issued a decision in Gun Owners of America v. Garland, holding that the ATF’s 2019 ban on bump stocks is invalid. Previously, the DC Circuit and the Tenth Circuit have upheld the ban (more precisely, have rejected preliminary injunctions with opinions that effectively […]