I
107TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 123
To prohibit civil liability actions from being brought or continued against
manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammuni-
tion for damages resulting from the misuse of their products by others.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY 3, 2001
Mr. BARR of Georgia introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To prohibit civil liability actions from being brought or con-
tinued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or
importers of firearms or ammunition for damages result-
ing from the misuse of their products by others.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Firearms Heritage
Protection Act of 2001’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS; PURPOSES.
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following:
(1) Citizens have a right, under the Second
Amendment to the United States Constitution, to
keep and bear arms.
(2) Lawsuits have been commenced against
manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers
of nondefective firearms, which seek money damages
and other relief for the harm caused by the misuse
of firearms by third parties, including criminals.
(3) The manufacture, importation, possession,
sale, and use of firearms and ammunition in the
United States is heavily regulated by Federal, State,
and local laws. Such Federal laws include the Gun
Control Act of 1968, the National Firearms Act,
and the Arms Export Control Act.
(4) Businesses in the United States that are en-
gaged in interstate and foreign commerce through
the lawful design, marketing, distribution, manufac-
ture, importation, or sale to the public of firearms
or ammunition that have been shipped or trans-
ported in interstate or foreign commerce are not,
and should not be, liable for the harm caused by
those who criminally or unlawfully misuse firearm
products or ammunition products.
(5) The possibility of imposing liability on an
entire industry for harm that is the sole responsi-
bility of others is an abuse of the legal system,
erodes public confidence our Nation’s laws, threatens
the diminution of a basic constitutional right, invites
the disassembly and destabilization of other indus-
tries and economic sectors lawfully competing in
America’s free enterprise system, and constitutes an
unreasonable burden on interstate and foreign com-
merce.
(6) The liability actions commenced or con-
templated by municipalities and cities are based on
theories without foundation in hundreds of years of
the common law and American jurisprudence. The
possible sustaining of these actions by a maverick
judicial officer would expand civil liability in a man-
ner never contemplated by the Framers of the Con-
stitution. The Congress further finds that such an
expansion of liability would constitute a deprivation
of the rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed
to a citizen of the United States under the Four-
teenth Amendment to the United States Constitu-
tion.
(b) PURPOSES.—The purposes of this Act are as fol-
lows:
(1) To prohibit causes of action against manu-
facturers, distributors, dealers, and importers of
firearms or ammunition products for the harm
caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm
products or ammunition products by others.
(2) To preserve a citizen’s access to a supply of
firearms and ammunition for all lawful purposes, in-
cluding hunting, self-defense, collecting, and com-
petitive or recreational shooting.
(3) To guarantee a citizen’s rights, privileges,
and immunities, as applied to the States, under the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Con-
stitution, pursuant to section five of that Amend-
ment.
SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON BRINGING OF QUALIFIED CIVIL
LIABILITY ACTIONS IN FEDERAL OR STATE
COURT.
(a) IN GENERAL.—A qualified civil liability action
may not be brought in any Federal or State court.
(b) DISMISSAL OF PENDING ACTIONS.—A qualified
civil liability action that is pending on the date of the en-
actment of this Act shall be dismissed immediately by the
court in which the action was brought.
SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) MANUFACTURER.—The term ‘‘manufac-
turer’’ means, with respect to a qualified product—
(A) a person who is engaged in a business
to import, make, produce, create, or assemble a
qualified product, and who designs or formu-
lates, or has engaged another person to design
or formulate, a qualified product;
(B) a seller of a qualified product, but only
with respect to an aspect of the product that is
made or affected when the seller makes, pro-
duces, creates, or assembles and designs or for-
mulates an aspect of the product made by an-
other person; and
(C) any seller of a qualified product who
represents to a user of a qualified product that
the seller is a manufacturer of the qualified
product.
(2) PERSON.—The term ‘‘person’’ means any
individual, corporation, company, association, firm,
partnership, society, joint stock company, or any
other entity, including any governmental entity.
(3) QUALIFIED PRODUCT.—The term ‘‘qualified
product’’ means a firearm (as defined in section
921(a)(3) of title 18, United States Code) or ammu-
nition (as defined in section 921(a)(17) of such
title), or a component part of a firearm or ammuni-
(B) installs, repairs, refurbishes, recondi-
tions, or maintains an aspect of a qualified
product that is alleged to have resulted in dam-
ages.
(6) STATE.—The term ‘‘State’’ includes each of
the several States of the United States, the District
of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the
Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands,
and any other territory or possession of the United
States, and any political subdivision of any such
place.
(7) TRADE ASSOCIATION.—The term ‘‘trade as-
sociation’’ means any association or business organi-
zation (whether or not incorporated under Federal
or State law) 2 or more members of which are man-
ufacturers or sellers of a qualified product.
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