It’s only right to hold people and companies responsible for their actions. They might not like it, but if you do something wrong, you should be held accountable. It’s something I try to instill in my children, just as my parents instilled it into me.
What’s not right is holding someone else accountable for another’s actions when the person you’re trying to hold accountable has no way to prevent that third party’s activities.
Yet that’s a key part of the anti-gun agenda. They want gun companies to be held responsible for what bad actors do.
In response to this, the Protection of Lawful Commerce of Arms Act was passed 20 years ago.
Illinois, however, is looking at a bill that’s really about continuing to blame gun makers for crimes they had nothing to do with, just in a new way.
The proposed Responsibility in Firearm Legislation, or RIFL Act, would create a licensing fee for any gun manufacturer that does business in Illinois.
Gun makers are immune from civil lawsuits from victims of gun violence. But the sponsor said this is a legal approach.
State Representative Kevin Olickal, a Skokie Democrat, said the revenue from the fees would go to a fund to support those impacted by gun violence and their families. He said the fees will depend on the safety features of specific weapons sold and how many injuries are attributed to them.
“So different manufacturers would have a different level of responsibility to pay into this fund based on how often their firearms are being found utilized in these incidents,” Olickal said.
If the bill were to pass, opponents warn the new fee might lead to some companies to pass the increased cost onto consumers.
Which is about all these companies can do if they want to continue selling guns in Illinois.
But let’s understand that they’re going to be billed for this license based on what criminals do, most of whom didn’t buy their guns lawfully. Further, none of them are buying directly from the manufacturer without going through a NICS check at their local licensed gun dealer.
In other words, they have no way to prevent bad people from getting their guns, but they’re going to be held responsible for it just the same.
Olickal tried to say that gun makers could add safety features to their guns that would help, and suggested that his bill would pressure them to do so, but absolutely no safety features would prevent criminals from using the guns unless they also rendered them unusable to anyone else to some degree or another. This idea of some safety device or technology that would render a firearm unusable to anyone but the owner, while working for him or her 100 percent of the time, is a myth.
I mean, my cell phone wouldn’t even let me skip a song on Spotify yesterday because my finger was so sweaty. Do you really think some biometric doodad on a gun would work any better?
Hardly.
The kicker, though, is that Olickal might well be right in that this is legal under the PLCAA. It’s not a lawsuit, so that alone might make it legal, though I’m not an attorney, so I could be wrong. Still, it’s a troubling development that needs to be addressed.
It’s yet another reason why the midterms are going to be vital for gun rights.
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