Think tank: Gun bill aims to ‘eliminate American firearms businesses’ through litigation | Colorado

(The Center Square) – A bill making its method through the Colorado General Assembly is “plainly designed to eliminate American firearms businesses” through litigation, a document from a right-leaning suppose tank in Colorado argues.

Senate Bill 23-168 was once voted out of the Senate’s State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee on Wednesday. It’s certainly one of a package deal of gun restriction expenses offered through Democrats.

Current state regulation limits the legal responsibility of firearm and ammunition producers to scenarios the place their merchandise are faulty. The bill would repeal the limitation. It handed on a 3-2 vote alongside birthday celebration strains and is referred to the Senate Committee of the Whole.

In a paper revealed through Independence Institute Research Director David Kopel, SB 23-168 is described as a “Bloomberg Bill,” the place former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg influenced the New York legislature to enact a state statute authorizing court cases towards firearms companies for behavior even out of doors the state.

“The new statute provided no notice of what lawful conduct would subject a firearms business to a suit,” the document states. “The new Bloomberg laws, including Colorado’s Senate Bill 23-168, are plainly designed to eliminate American firearms businesses through litigation costs.”

Bill sponsors Sens. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Longmont, and Chris Kolker, D-Centennial, each said the bill creates equity for the ones harmed through gun violence.

“Colorado law gives a set of protections to the firearms industry that few other businesses have,” Jaquez Lewis said in a statement after Wednesday’s vote. “These laws shield them from accountability and must be changed. This legislation will level the playing field by removing those extra protections and allowing legitimate lawsuits to move forward, ensuring the gun industry is no longer given special treatment and improving gun violence survivors’ ability to seek the justice they deserve.”

Kolker mentioned the bill puts gun producers at the similar degree as different companies.

“Currently, Colorado gun sellers and manufacturers are provided legal protections far beyond those for most other businesses in the state and that bar victims of gun violence from seeking justice,” he mentioned in a observation. “Removing Colorado’s overly broad gun industry immunity law will provide another avenue for survivors to pursue justice if they are harmed by irresponsible business practices.”

The Independence Institute criticizes the bill’s requirement for the Colorado’s firearms trade “to establish and implement reasonable controls and precautions related to the industry product in its control (firearm industry standards of responsible conduct).”

“Rather, SB23-168 would turn Colorado courts into a national vehicle for the destruction of the firearm industry – the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ lawsuit abuse program touted by the lawsuit architects,” the document states. “The bill even authorizes suits against businesses in other states that do not have whatever a plaintiff claims to be ‘reasonable controls.’ A law-abiding business in Pennsylvania would have to guess about what the Colorado Attorney General or other Colorado plaintiff might one day deem to be not ‘reasonable.’”