December 5, 2025

‘Devil Made Me Do It’ Lawsuits Creep Back Into Courts

By Larry Keane

What’s old is new, again. That’s the case when it comes to public nuisance lawsuits. Those are those pesky lawsuits brought by municipalities that bring claims against entities alleging that their lawfully-made and lawfully-sold products or services are harmful to communities.

In reality, they’re a trial lawyer’s dream. They attempt to place the blame on remote third parties for the failings — and even the criminal actions — of those who are ultimately responsible for their own behavior. Lawsuits like these are an attempt to absolve an individual of responsibility for their own actions and instead, like a petulant child, claim that “the devil made me do it.”

That devil, of course, is the nearest target of that blame deflection. With public lawsuits, they also happen to be companies. Those companies represent deep pockets. Those trial lawyers see a payout. The activists working hand-in-glove with those trial lawyers see the reward in the devious notion that they can bleed those companies dry with legal costs and court fees, settlements, or even damage awards if they get lucky.

This is nothing new to those in the firearm industry. As Yogi Berra once said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

What’s Old is New

Think back to the late 1990s and early 2000s. That’s when public nuisance lawsuits against the firearm industry lawsuits were piling up. Over 40 big city mayors conspired through the U.S. Conference of Mayors with gun control activist lawyers from the Brady Center and greedy trial lawyers. Their plan was to haul firearm manufacturers and sellers into court to make the industry pay for the criminal misuse of legal, non-defective firearms lawfully sold after a background check to law-abiding Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights. These lawsuits amounted to suing Ford or General Motors for the harm caused by drunk drivers.

This legal nightmare for the industry began when New Orleans filed suit on Halloween Day in 1998 followed the next day by Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Richard Daley. The last of the municipal lawsuits was filed by then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in June of 2000. All the cities were run by Democrat mayors, except for then-New York City Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani whose case was taken over by Michael Bloomberg when he was elected mayor of the Big Apple. Even New York’s former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was serving as President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, got involved when he organized dozens of local housing authorities to bring their own lawsuits against gunmakers and threatened the industry with “death by a thousand cuts.”

The majority of the states — 33 — saw the misuse of the legal system and passed their own state laws barring these lawsuits from clogging court dockets and bankrupting companies through legal fees. Congress finally acted. The bill that would become the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) passed out of the U.S. House of Representatives with a lopsided approval of 283–144. The same happened in the U.S. Senate, which passed the measure 65–31. President George W. Bush signed it in 2005. The PLCAA does nothing more than codify black letter tort law. No other industry in America had been so targeted by such baseless, politically motivated lawsuits.

New Challenges

That hasn’t stopped today’s antigun politicians, lawyers and activists from dusting off the worn-out playbook to start it all over again. So far, 10 states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Washington — enacted laws in an attempt to circumvent the PLCAA and allow these sorts of frivolous lawsuits. They use public resources (read taxpayer dollars and taxpayer-funded attorneys general) to bring about these frivolous lawsuits, often in coordination with Everytown for Gun Safety, that attempt to shift the blame for the criminal actions of an individual to companies that lawfully produce and lawfully sell firearms.

NSSF is challenging those laws. There are five challenges against those state laws pending in courts today. The problem these laws face is that they still run into the fact that PLCAA is federal law. The PLCAA simply says that these agenda-driven lawsuits can’t be brought against a manufacturer that had nothing to do with the criminal or wrongful misuse of their product. And these laws aren’t unique to the firearm industry, despite the rhetoric by antigun politicians and activists. Vaccine makers have similar protections. The 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act gives the Health and Human Services Secretary authority to provide legal protection to companies making or distributing the vaccines.

Manufacturers of medical devices, the airline industries and even online service and content providers are protected from frivolous lawsuits when defamatory information posted is by others.

Personal Responsibility

Sadly, that doesn’t matter much to trial lawyers and some politicians. They look for a convenient target and their bank account. It is legalized judicial extortion — it is a shakedown. The City of San Francisco just filed a lawsuit against 10 major food companies alleging they made, marketed and sold products that city officials claim the companies knew were harmful to the health of their customers, in this case, San Francisco residents. San Francisco’s lawyers claim this contributes to a “public health crisis,” language that is eerily similar to the claims they use against the firearm industry.

Just like the public nuisance lawsuits against the firearm industry in the late 1990s and early, 2000s, fast food giants faced similar claims against them during the same time period. In 2002, Joseph Connor — a 420-pound man — sued McDonald’s claiming his obesity was that fast food company’s fault. He claimed his obesity, which cost him a job, was due to their food products. That case was ultimately settled. In 2002, Caeser Barber of New York sued Wendy’s, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s, alleging the fast food giants failed to warn of the ill health effects. He ate at those restaurants four times a week and alleged his obesity, diabetes and multiple heart attacks were the fault of the restaurants. His case was dismissed with prejudice. In 2002, Gregory Himes, a 400-pound 15-year-old, along with nine other teens sued McDonald’s over their health-related concerns after eating at there every day since he was six. The class-action lawsuit was dismissed in 2010.

These all have a similar undercurrent. The lawsuits attempt to absolve individuals of responsibility of their decisions. In the case of fast-food restaurants, the individuals chose to eat at establishments. In the case of the firearm industry, lawyers representing the cities are attempting to absolve criminals that wrongfully misuse a lawfully-made and lawfully-sold product.

President Ronald Reagan offered sage advice that still holds true today. He said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

That time is now.

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New York Understandably Seeing Surge in Second Amendment Interest, Gun Purchases