In 2025, Connecticut enacted legislation establishing responsible business practice requirements for the firearm industry and allowing victims of gun violence or public officials to bring civil lawsuits against the members of the industry who violate the law.1 This law goes into effect on October 1, 2025.
As discussed on our Gun Industry Immunity policy page, the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) provides many firearm industry defendants with immunity from common law tort actions. However, important exceptions exist to this law, including the “predicate exception” authorizing civil lawsuits against firearm industry members who knowingly violate a statute applicable to the marketing or sale of firearms. In the past this exception has allowed litigation against firearm industry members in Connecticut under state consumer protection law, and the state’s new Firearm Industry Responsibility Act similarly allows for litigation against industry members that knowingly violate the law.
The Firearm Industry Responsibility Act requires firearm manufacturers, dealers, and similar entities to:
- Establish, implement, and enforce “reasonable controls” to prevent the sale of firearms to traffickers, straw purchasers, or people prohibited from having a firearm, to prevent the sale of firearms to individuals who pose a substantial risk to themselves or others, to prevent the sale of devices that promote the conversion of a legal firearm into an illegal one, and to comply with other relevant state laws;
- Ensure that they do not provide firearm products to other firearm industry members if there is reasonable cause to believe they are in violation of the law;
- Not purposely and knowingly advertise their products in a manner that promotes unlawful sales or unlawful use of those products or that poses unreasonable risk to public safety; and
- Not knowingly violate any state or federal law relating to firearm industry products.
Individuals harmed by violations of this law, in addition to municipal and state officials, may bring civil actions against the members of the firearm industry that violated the law. They may seek compensation for the damages they suffered, as well as injunctive relief to prevent future violations of the law. They may also seek punitive damages, restitution, and other appropriate costs and damages.
Connecticut exempts from criminal prosecution, and makes immune from civil liability, any owner, operator or user of a firing or shooting range operating on October 1, 1998, with respect to noise or noise pollution violations resulting from shooting activity on such range, provided the range was, at the time of its construction or operational approval by the municipality in which it is located, in compliance with Connecticut General Statutes Chapter 442 and related regulations.2 State law does not, however, limit the ability of a municipality to regulate an increase in noise attributable to a physical expansion of an existing firing or shooting range.3
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