The Supreme Court has requested a formal response from the plaintiffs in Daniel Defense v. Lowy — a procedural signal that at least one justice wants to review a Fourth Circuit ruling that allowed a gunmaker liability lawsuit to survive dismissal — Bearing Arms reported August 26. Responses from the plaintiffs are due September 25, and the Court's first fall conference is scheduled for September 28, when Daniel Defense v. Lowy is expected to be discussed by the nine justices.

Daniel Defense and eleven other members of the firearms industry are asking the Court to reverse the Fourth Circuit, which sided with Karen Lowy and Antonio Harris — two individuals injured in a 2022 shooting at the Edmund Burke School in Washington, D.C. — after a federal district court had initially dismissed the suit. The companies argue that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, passed by Congress in 2005, bars exactly this kind of action: a civil lawsuit against manufacturers and retailers over crimes committed by a third party using a legally produced firearm.

The PLCAA was Congress's direct response to a sustained litigation campaign in the late 1990s and early 2000s that sought to hold gunmakers financially liable for criminal misuse of their products. The law carves out only narrow exceptions — a manufacturer knowingly selling to a buyer with criminal intent, for instance — and was intended to establish a uniform national rule protecting the industry from unlimited third-party liability. Without it, gun-control advocates would have a litigation path to making firearms manufacturing economically untenable, regardless of whether any given maker did anything wrong.

The Fourth Circuit's reading of those exceptions was broad enough to let the Lowy suit continue, putting that court in conflict with three others. The Fifth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits all hold that Article III standing requires plaintiffs to demonstrate that a manufacturer's conduct had a "determinative or coercive effect" on the person who actually committed the crime — a meaningful causation test that the Fourth Circuit bypassed. The Daily Caller covered the SCOTUS response request on August 27, noting that the circuit split makes the case ripe for Supreme Court resolution.

The Firearms Policy Coalition and other Second Amendment groups have been tracking PLCAA cases as a long-term threat to the industry. When three circuits apply the statute one way and a fourth applies it differently, the practical consequence is that the liability exposure of firearms manufacturers depends on the zip code where a plaintiff files — precisely the kind of forum-shopping inconsistency that PLCAA was designed to eliminate.

If the Court grants cert, the outcome could establish whether PLCAA's protections hold nationally or whether the Fourth Circuit's broader reading effectively opens a new front for lawfare against gunmakers. The September 28 conference will be the first concrete indicator of how seriously the Court is treating the petition.