Gun Control Groups Cite Firearm Suits in Supreme Court Climate Brief
By Daily Caller News Foundation (/journals/dcnf)
Anti-Second Amendment groups got involved in a landmark climate case months before the first lawyer entered the Supreme Court’s chambers to deliver oral arguments in Suncor Energy v. Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County.
Boulder County and the city of Boulder, Colorado, sued Suncor and other energy companies, claiming they misled the public about how fossil fuels affect the climate while continuing to sell them. In a little-reported 41-page brief filed with the Supreme Court in August, Brady United and the Giffords Law Center backed Boulder County, saying that they often sued firearms manufacturers using similar legal theories as the Colorado jurisdiction was using in its suit against energy conglomerates.
“Among the litigation that amici have filed and supported are lawsuits against gun manufacturers for certain conduct alleged to constitute a public nuisance at common law,” the groups said in a statement of interest at the start of the brief. “Amici submit this brief in support of respondents to discuss those suits and other exercises of the States’ police powers through litigation.”
During oral arguments Monday, the justices appeared divided on how to address the Boulder case, while many Republican observers backed energy companies’ arguments that federal law preempted action by state and local governments.
Several cities and states filed lawsuits against firearms manufacturers in the late 1990s after efforts to pass gun control laws through state legislatures failed, particularly after the 1994 midterm elections. Brady United was involved in many of these suits, back when it called itself Handgun Control, Incorporated (HCI), according to the National Rifle Association (NRA).
“Municipal governments continued to exercise this power in the twentieth century by bringing nuisance suits against gun manufacturers, distributors, and dealers to address the local effects of their conduct,” Brady and Giffords claimed. “In these cases, cities generally alleged that the firearms industry ‘created and maintained a public nuisance by manufacturing, marketing, distributing, and selling firearms in ways that unreasonably interfere with the public health, wealth, and safety’ of their cities.”
Some anti-Second Amendment groups backed an effort by Mexico to sue firearms manufacturers, which was rejected by the Supreme Court in June 2025 on the grounds that the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act’s provisions blocked the litigation absent findings that the firearms manufacturers had broken the law. The 2005 legislation also blocked many of the municipal suits.
Some officials backing the lawsuits explicitly said they were seeking to use litigation to implement restrictions that were unable to be passed via the democratic process due to pro-Second Amendment majorities in Congress and many state legislatures. The restrictions included limiting handgun sales to one gun a month, limits on magazine capacity and the use of so-called “smart gun” technology.
“They’ve always very effectively, with big money, lobbied the legislature and kept laws from being passed,” Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim told The New York Times in 1999.
Former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Clinton administration, also got involved in the litigation, vowing that gun manufacturers would face “death by a thousand cuts” if they didn’t accept the terms demanded by anti-Second Amendment organizations.
The Indiana Supreme Court ended a 27-year-old lawsuit by the city of Gary against firearms manufacturers in May, which dragged on for two decades despite the 2005 enactment of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
Several states and municipalities sued Glock, alleging that the company’s popular semi-automatic pistols were a nuisance due to illegal modifications that allow the pistols to operate as full-automatic or select-fire firearms.
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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.