Illinois Gov. Pritzker Enacts Law Restricting How Gunmakers Advertise

Handguns and firearms are displayed during a statewide gun buyback event held by the office of the New York State Attorney General in the Brooklyn borough of New York on April 29, 2023. Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images

Democrat Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law on Saturday, prohibiting gun industry members from engaging in certain marketing practices that might appear to promote “unlawful paramilitary” activity or that might appeal to children.

Dubbed the “Firearm Industry Responsibility Act,” the bill Mr. Pritzker signed specifies that it is unlawful to “advertise, market, or promote a firearm-related product in a manner that reasonably appears to support, recommend, or encourage individuals to engage in unlawful paramilitary or private militia activity in Illinois, or individuals who are not in the National Guard, United States armed forces reserves, United States armed forces, or any duly authorized military organization to use a firearm-related product for a military-related purpose in Illinois.”

The bill further states it is also unlawful for gun industry members to “advertise, market, promote, design, or sell any firearm-related product in a manner that reasonably appears to support, recommend, or encourage persons under 18 years of age to unlawfully purchase or possess or use a firearm-related product in Illinois.” The act specifies that the use of caricatures or cartoonish imagery in promotional materials, or promotional materials that include children using a firearm-related product, would run afoul of the law. The bill further targets firearm-related products that come in “sizes, colors, or designs that are specifically designed to be used by, or appeal to, minors.”

NTD News reached out to the bill’s sponsor, Democrat state Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, with questions about the types of products and promotional materials that she intended to prohibit under this bill. She did not respond by the time this article was published.

“We hold opioid manufacturers accountable. Vaping companies accountable. Predatory lenders accountable,” Mr. Pritzker said on Saturday. “Gun manufacturers shouldn’t get to hide from the law—and now, they won’t be able to. Here’s to an Illinois where everyone feels safe in every corner of our great state.”

The law creates an avenue by which firearms industry members may be targeted with lawsuits when their marketing practices run afoul of the new law.

“No single industry should be given a free pass to engage in unlawful, unfair or deceptive conduct,” Democrat Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said of the bill. “The Firearms Industry Responsibility Act clarifies my office’s ability to use the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, which is a tool to hold businesses accountable for fraudulent or deceptive practices through civil litigation. It is how my office has protected the public from opioid manufacturers, vaping companies, tobacco companies and predatory lenders.”

States Seek Ways to Sue Gun Industry

With the enactment of this law, Illinois is now the eighth state to pass legislation specifically targeting certain firearms industry marketing practices and raise the threat of civil liability as a means of limiting those marketing practices. Other states that impose legal liability against firearm industry members include California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Washington—all states with Democrat governors and majority-Democrat legislatures.

Gun rights advocates have pushed back against these types of laws, arguing that they run afoul of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a federal law passed in 2005 that broadly protects firearm industry members from civil liability when their products are illegally misused. Under the PLCAA, firearm industry members may still face liability if they sold a defective product, if they transferred a firearm to someone knowing that it would be used in a crime, or if the gun industry member “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing” of the firearm.

The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun-control proponent, has argued that the industry protections afforded under the PLCAA “are not absolute.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), has argued that state-level firearm industry liability laws like the kind Illinois passed expose the industry to “frivolous” lawsuits. The NSSF has filed legal challenges to these laws in California, Delaware, and New Jersey. The organization said that in addition to running afoul of the PLCAA, these laws violate the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“These state laws are at odds with bedrock principles of American law, which does not hold manufacturers and sellers legally responsible for the actions of criminals and remote third parties over whom the manufacturer and seller have no control when they misuse lawfully sold products,” NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane said of the Delaware and New Jersey bills.

In January, the NSSF won a preliminary injunction challenging New Jersey’s firearm industry liability laws.

From NTD News