NSSF Rejects City of Buffalo’s Frivolous Lawsuit Against Firearm Industry Members

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, rejects the false premise of the lawsuit brought by the City of Buffalo against several firearm manufacturers, distributors and retailers. The accusations are without any legal merit and are an obvious attempt by city officials to deflect attention and shift responsibility for their failure to enforce the law against criminals by casting blame on a Constitutionally-protected and most highly-regulated industry in the nation today.
“The junk lawsuit by the City of Buffalo attempts to deflect attention for illegal activities by criminals by laying blame at the feet of the firearm industry, which is following the law,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “This is no different from the frivolous and unsuccessful lawsuits filed against firearm manufacturers in the late 1990s and early 2000s by crime-ridden big-city mayors across the country. Those lawsuits failed because they were legally and factually baseless. But they did, however, result in Congress passing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005 by a broad bipartisan margin.”
The recently passed New York public nuisance law, upon which Buffalo’s lawsuit is based, is a transparent and unconstitutional attempt to defy the will of Congress. A lawsuit challenging the Constitutionality of the New York public nuisance law is now before a federal appellate court in Manhattan. Read more