PLCAA: Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Broad immunity granted to gun manufacturers and dealers. An impenetrable legal shield. And by impenetrable, I mean exceptional in how few exceptions Congress permits that allow the materialization of a lawsuit with permissible, material allegations. In other words, Congress doesn’t want us suing the gunmakers, the gun dealers, the ammo middlemen, for “products that function as designed and intended.” Let me repeat that: products that function as designed and intended. Now let’s play Mad Libs, switch out some nouns and verbs: guns that kill as designed and intended; weapons that weapon as weaponed and weaponed; murder tools that murder as designed and intended.
Mauser: A gun manufacturer.
Columbine: The state flower of Colorado.
$203,000: The legal fees that plaintiffs were ordered to pay when Phillips v. Lucky Gunner was dismissed under the PLCAA in 2015.
Lucky Gunner: An online ammunition and gun accessory distributor. Some states require an ID before a gun owner becomes a customer. Some require even more authentication. And then there are the other states. Here’s what the company said after Jessi’s parents sued them: “[gun] rights are under constant assault and the stakes are high.” And here’s what it said regarding the $203,000 that Jessi’s parents were ordered to pay them: “We are going to donate 100% of what is recovered to groups that support and defend the 2nd Amendment.”
Plaintiffs: The Phillips family. Sandy and Lonnie Phillips. Parents of Jessi Redfield Ghawi, who was murdered in a mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado with ammunition sold by Lucky Gunner. This family was not referenced in Defendants’ public statement regarding the lawsuit. According to them, the lawyers simply sued the company themselves without a client. Just to be mean. Just because they didn’t like the hardworking folks at Lucky Gunner.
Columbine: A high school in Colorado.
Daniel Mauser: My first cousin once removed. My father’s cousin. My great uncle’s son.
Tom Mauser: My great uncle. He didn’t expect to become a gun control activist. But, then again, he didn’t expect his son’s high school to become a household name.
PLCAA: A scare tactic. Both shield and sword. A slow, painful way to lose $203,000 if you dare ask for a smidge of change following the death of your daughter. Quite the unique, impenetrable iron dome around not just a company, or a product, but an entire industry. The result of lobbying. The consequence of refusing to name the victims. An excuse to look away from the victims. And to keep looking away from them.
Columbine: The high school in Colorado that my first cousin once removed attended. One day, he walked into the library; he never walked out. He wasn’t the only one.
Colorado: Home of Columbine. Home of columbine. Home of Aurora. Home of some Mausers. Home of some Phillipses.
Colorado: Home of Jessi’s Law, as of 2023.
Jessi’s Law: Legislation that “allows a person or entity that has been harmed as a result of a violation of standards by a firearm manufacturer, retail seller, wholesale seller, importer, marketer, or distributor to bring a lawsuit under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.”
Colorado Senate Bill 168: Jessi’s Law’s formal name, a.k.a. the name someone (and by “someone,” I mean a person who represents and/or hides behind an entity like Lucky Gunner) uses if their industry doesn’t want to acknowledge the names of those killed with their products when they function as designed and intended.
PLCAA: Still has a pulse.
Lucky Gunner: Still has a pulse.
Jessi Redfield Ghawi:
Daniel Mauser:
Sources (copy & paste into browser):
“Brady vs. Lucky Gunner.”
https://www.luckygunner.com/brady-v-lucky-gunner
“15 U.S. Code § 7901 – Findings; purposes.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7901
“Survivors Empowered Applauds Jessi’s Law.”
https://survivorsempowered.org/survivors-empowered-applauds-jessis-law/
Jeremy Mauser is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama. His prose, poetry, and everything in between are featured or forthcoming in New Delta Review, Does It Have Pockets, Eggplant Emoji, and other publications. He is an Assistant Fiction Editor at Black Warrior Review, a Reader at The Masters Review, and a stand-up comic who can be found on Instagram @jeremymauserwrites and Bluesky @jeremymauser.bsky.social.