By: David Lamb*
Abstract
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a 2005 federal statute, grants broad legal protections to the gun industry, shielding it from a range of civil liabilities. Gun violence prevention advocates have criticized the law’s sweeping civil immunities for fueling the U.S.’s unprecedented rate of gun-related deaths, which have increased fifty-nine percent since the passage of PLCAA. But innovations in biometric technology, which can now be used to secure guns, highlight a key limitation to PLCAA’s immunity protections.
This Article examines the impact of the so-called “smart” gun, which uses biometric sensors to prevent unauthorized users from firing it, on PLCAA’s exception for design defects. It explores the potential effects of smart guns on courts’ analysis of defective design claims with respect to firearms. Drawing from court decisions addressing the impact of emerging technology as well as child-safety protections on defective design claims, doctrines of criminal intent governing young children, and social science research into unintentional gun deaths caused by children, this Article argues that the advent of smart guns leaves the manufacturers of legacy firearms increasingly vulnerable to products liability claims.
*David Lamb, J.D. is a Twin Cities–based litigator, member of the Minnesota Legislature’s Task Force on Domestic Violence and Gun Surrender, and a former student director of the University of Minnesota Law School’s Gun Violence Prevention Clinic.
Suggested Citation: David Lamb, Deadly By Design: Emerging Opportunities To Hold Gunmakers Liable in the Era of Smart Firearms, 129 Penn St. L. Rev. Penn Statim 228 (2025).