California’s AB 1263, which regulates not only home made guns, but even gun parts, just underscores that we need a revitalized Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that does all of the following:
1. Preempts all state-level interference with the acquisition of firearms and parts. They can do background checks for firearms themselves, but that’s it. Frankly, the dormant commerce clause should have done this already, but our hack courts will never apply DCC in a way that protects gun rights.
2. Relatedly, preempt all state-level gun bans. No more handgun rosters, no more “assault weapons” bans, no more magazine capacity limits. Hopefully SCOTUS will knock some of these out soon.
3. Preempts state-level NFA interference. If something is an NFA item, a state shouldn’t be able to totally ban it.
4. Open up interstate gun sales, at least from FFLs. If I want to buy from a gun store in Arizona, I should be allowed to without having to ship to a California dealer and pay California’s fees and taxes.
5. Ban all state-level taxes on guns except sales taxes that apply to everything.
6. Revamp the original PLCAA to make clear that companies are immune from liability from lawsuits arising from the illegal modification of their guns. (e.g., GLOCK switches).
7. To proceed on a claim of “misleading advertising,” you must prove at the outset — before any other discovery — that the suspect saw the advertisement and that it influenced him to commit his crime.
None of this will happen for now thanks to the filibuster. But given Dems’ plan to kill it when they’re in power, this is a thing to plan for when it’s Republicans’ turn again circa 2033 or 2037 when the filibuster is a thing of the past.
The anti-gun blue states and rich disarmament financiers like Michael Bloomberg are trying to price us out of our rights while suing gun companies into oblivion. The original PLCAA is no longer enough.
This is a federal right, and the states should have little ability to interfere with it as they have. It’s just insane that we have the Second Amendment and the commerce clause, but California can, for example, make people ship online ammo orders to an FFL, pay at least $5 for a background check and an 11% excise tax too (plus the FFL wants a fee too for receiving the ammo).
How is that not violative of the commerce clause, let alone Second Amendment? And this is just one of tons of examples. Anti-gun states are destroying the lawful commerce in arms. We need PLCAA 2 Electric Boogaloo.
Kostas Moros is Director of Legal Research and Eduction for the Second Amendment Foundation. This post was adapted by SNW tweets he posted at X.
The original PLCAA passed with 15 Democratic Senators and 59 Democratic House members, at a time when the Democratic party hadn’t yet gone all in on gun control.
Today it would be virtually straight party line vote, only there wouldn’t BE a vote in the Senate, you couldn’t get past the fillibuster.
We don’t need a more robust PLCAA, anyway. We need a more robust 18 U.S. Code § 242. And THAT might get some Democratic votes.
There was some Supreme Court case ages ago which ruled that while states could apply standard sales taxes to newspapers, they could not add extra taxes because that would violate freedom of the press. That ought to apply to guns too.