Law Limiting Gun Suits Upheld

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the federal law (PLCAA) limiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers over acts committed by criminals with guns, overturning a ruling by radical judge Jack Weinstein gutting the law.  (I earlier discussed how judicial case assignment procedures are manipulated so that the lion’s share of landmark cases in New York’s Eastern District mysteriously end up being decided by Judge Weinstein rather than his more moderate colleagues). 

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has claimed that the law violates “separation of powers” by changing the outcome of pending court cases (an argument that, if taken to its logical conclusion, would require invalidating the 1964 Civil Rights Act because it legislatively overturned trespass convictions of civil-rights demonstrators who engaged in sit-ins).  I earlier commented on the Brady Center’s hypocrisy in claiming that it is “judicial activism” for judges to strike down gun bans based on the Second Amendment, but not judicial activism for judges to strike down the democratically-enacted PLCAA based on unwritten separation-of-powers principles.