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Addressing the epidemic of gun violence is another issue where Public Citizen is protecting women. Some gender-based statistics are familiar: for example, women are overwhelmingly the caregivers in our families. But, far fewer people are aware of the tragic fact that more than half of the women killed by gun violence are killed by a current or former intimate partner.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, every month 57 women are shot or killed by an intimate partner. That is a horrible outcome that must be addressed by our nation’s leaders. One way is to provide more recourses for justice through the courts.
Over the past few decades, Congress and the courts have immunized numerous industries from liability to consumers, patients, and workers—eliminating individuals’ ability to obtain redress and decreasing companies’ incentive to make their products, services and workplaces safe.
After intense corporate lobbying, President George W. Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005, a law that protects gun manufacturers and firearms dealers from civil liability, even for failure to take reasonable steps to ensure safe use of their products.
In order to counter that misguided grant of immunity, Public Citizen supports the Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act, a bill that would restore the rights of victims of gun violence to hold the firearm industry accountable when it acts carelessly and disregards reasonable safeguards that would protect the American public—safety requirements that other product manufacturers and sellers must meet.
President Biden recently noted that if he could repeal just one gun law, it would be removing the exemption from immunity that gun manufacturers enjoy. Public Citizen is committed to working with gun rights advocates, President Biden, and Congress to repeal the gun immunity law to keep everyone safe—including the hundreds of women that are killed every year by their partners. You can add your voice here to call on Congress to repeal PLACAA.
Remington A. Gregg, Guest Blogger, Public Citizen
