Senate committee passes bill aimed at ending Gary’s gun maker lawsuit

Gary Mayor Eddie Melton, pictured in a 2023 file photo, argued against an Indiana Statehouse bill that would quash the city’s lawsuit against gun manufacturers at a State Senate committee hearing on Feb. 20, 2024. The Indiana Senate Committee on Corrections and Criminal Law voted on Tuesday to advance a bill aimed at stopping the city of Gary’s 25-year-long lawsuit against handgun makers.

“This is that camel sticking the nose under the tent,” Melton, who served in the Indiana Senate until December, told the committee. “Local governments have the right to fight back against bad actors, and I repeat, bad actors who they believe are harming their community.” Courtney Curtis, assistant executive director at the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, did not take a stance on the bill, but explained to the committee that gun violence has increased in Northwest Indiana in recent years. She noted that the rate of minors killed by firearms in the region is more than double the national rate.

Courts have consistently allowed the lawsuit to proceed, even as new legislation has curtailed the civil liability of gun makers. In 2005, shortly after Congress granted industry businesses broad civil protections at the federal level with the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, the defendants unsuccessfully moved to dismiss the lawsuit.

When Corrine Youngs, policy director and legislative council to Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, argued for reserving the power to sue gun makers for Rokita’s office because “it makes sense in these regulatory situations to have one decision maker for the state of Indiana,” Brown pushed back.

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