"Monday" Gunday (on a Tuesday!)

**Nigel** (0:17)
I know, I know, it's Tuesday, but we were on the road Tuesday. Me and Ethan Hatcher for the Shelby County Fair. Thanks for everybody coming out and hanging out with us there on the first day of the Shelby County Fair.
And thanks for the fair for having us out, the 177th County Fair guy.

**Guy Relford** (0:35)
That's awesome.

**Nigel** (0:35)
That was amazing. But Guy Relford, we figured, guys fill it in for the entire day. Tuesday, we do Monday Gun Day on a Tuesday. How are you?

**Guy Relford** (0:43)
I am great. And thanks as always to our sponsor for this Tuesday edition of Monday Gun Day, which premier arms in Brownsburg, the largest selection of new used and historic firearms in the Midwest. And PA Jewelers located in the farmhouse right out front. Check them out at 3754 South Green Street in Brownsburg or premierarms.com.

**Nigel** (1:02)
And you are a 2A attorney. You are a licensed firearms instructor. And so we are going to start here with SCOTUS, the Supreme Court. Now, this isn't your typical classic 2A case.
It's kind of it has something to do with the Second Amendment and guns, but not exactly. Tell me why you wouldn't want to be a gun manufacturer or seller in New York right now?

**Guy Relford** (1:31)
Yeah, great way to phrase the question, Nigel. And that is that the Supreme Court of the United States has turned down a case. I mean, they're not going to review a case that upheld a New York law that says that in New York, firearm manufacturers and sellers can be sued, even though they complied with the law when they sold a gun, that gun is then used in a criminal act.
They can be held responsible, held liable in a lawsuit for that, notwithstanding a federal statute that says they have immunity. And what the gun manufacturers argued, and this was through the Federal Shooting Sports Association, NSSF, National Shooting Sports Foundation, that was supporting them in this litigation.
What they argued was that, because federal law, if they directly conflict, if a federal law directly conflicts with state law, federal law wins. That's under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. So in that situation, we say federal law preempts local law. And here the argument was, since there's a federal statute that says you have immunity, if you lawfully sell a product and that product's used in a criminal act, and the New York law says, oh, no, you don't, then the argument was federal law preempted local law. So you're right, it wasn't really a classic 2A case. It was a preemption case. And the Supreme Court turned it down. The lower court had said, well, yes, federal law and state law are clearly regulating this area a little differently, but not to the extent that we can say that state law is preempted. So they allowed this state law to remain in place. And it was really noteworthy to me to read about this. I mean, one, I wouldn't want to even want to be a gun owner in New York, much less a gun manufacturer. And I guarantee you, they've already seen manufacturers leave. They're going to see more after this kind of a decision. But it also struck me that here just a week or two ago, we were discussing right here on your show that the Indiana Supreme Court turned down a case that actually resulted in the dismissal of a very similar lawsuit, which was a lawsuit against the gun industry. Right? And it was called Gary V. Glock. And we talked about this lawsuit had been around for 27 years.

**Nigel** (3:50)
No way.

**Guy Relford** (3:51)
And the legislature right here in Indiana, rather than doing what they did in New York, which is pass the law and says, oh, yeah, there's liability here. The Indiana legislature, the art general assembly, passed a law that says, hell no, there's not. There's complete immunity.
And then actually kept going back and amending it to the point that courts couldn't get around it. And finally, just two weeks ago, that lawsuit, Gary V. Glock here in Indiana died. It was one of those situations where New York's working hard to try to put gun manufacturers and gun sellers out of business. Indiana's saying, oh hell no, we recommend, we support and defend the Second Amendment here in Indiana. And we reached exactly the opposite result here in Indiana. Maybe another reason, showed me another reason I was proud to be a Hoosier.

**Nigel** (4:33)
Could you describe maybe a scenario where somebody in New York would sue a gun manufacturer at all? Like, I mean, there's probably precedent, there's probably an actual case that we're dealing with here. But why and how in New York could somebody, like what could somebody say to say, oh, the gun manufacturers at fault here?