Highland Park Lawsuit Points To Serious Post-Bruen Threat

Highland Park, IL/United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- One of the reasons that Second Amendment supporters needed a post-Bruen strategy became evident with the news that victims of the Highland Park shooting have filed suit against Smith and Wesson, aiming at the M&P 15 rifle the shooter misused in the horrific act.

Aiding the suit is Brady United, which coordinated the lawsuits from big cities and some states in the late 1990s and early 2000s. So, Second Amendment supporters can bet the mortgage, utility, and cable payments that these suits aren’t about addressing real issues, but coercing gun manufacturers into agreeing to settlements with provisions that would never pass constitutional muster if passed into law. It goes without saying that the shooter is the only person responsible for that horrific act, and said shooter should be the one who pays.

Making this threat even worse are the actions of Kirkland and Ellis in the wake of the Bruen decision, which points to a long-term threat that has to be addressed as well: Ensuring a new generation of lawyers to take Second Amendment cases can rise up to the level of Paul Clement. As of now, it is a safe bet that if these actions go unchecked, many conservative lawyers may be either unable – or unwilling – to take a Second Amendment case due to the fear of repercussions.

Our enemies weren’t stupid. They know they are losing the arguments in a straight-up fight, even when they have major advantages in the mainstream media. So, their next-best option is to find ways to make sure we can’t even take the field, whether through campaign-reform schemes or by getting businesses to go along with what is, for all intents and purposes, a form of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction regime that is aimed at Israel.

Second Amendment supporters will need to work to beat back this assault on our rights because the stakes are quite high. With NYSRPA v. Bruen, Caetano v. Massachusetts, and Heller v. D.C., we have gone a long way towards securing our rights on the constitutional front, but the legal front is not the only one.

Between settlements and threats of legal action, we could still lose our rights if no company wants to make a modern multi-purpose semiautomatic long gun for fear of being drowned in a sea of litigation, or if banks and credit card companies decide to financially deplatform the Second Amendment.

Obviously, part of the answer is to strengthen the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to close off these suits. But the other part is going to be a long-term effort to deter businesses from engaging in corporate gun control. Defeating anti-Second Amendment extremists via the ballot box at the federal, state, and local levels is important, but it also has to be defeated in corporate suites.

About Harold Hutchison

Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.