The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) have made substantial in-roads across a range of industries, but the firearm industry is not one of them. The United States is the largest producer of firearms for civilian acquisition in the world, yet U.S. firearm manufacturers, sellers, and distributors remain generally impervious to regulation. Moreover, federal and state legislation provides unique legal protections for firearm industry actors, rendering them largely shielded from accountability for contributing to gun deaths and injuries. This creates a paradox that fuels the endemic gun violence crisis in the United States and throughout the region: a business sector that makes lethal products for public consumption that are easily and regularly abused, but remains largely free of regulatory restraints and legal accountability. In this essay we situate the gun violence crisis occurring within the United States and regionally, before describing the basis of the firearms industry’s complicity in enabling it. Next, we detail how civil society organizations Global Action on Gun Violence (GAGV) alongside the George Washington University Law School’s Civil and Human Rights Law Clinic (CHRLC) are using innovative approaches to bring about industry accountability through domestic and transnational litigation. Finally, we conclude with preliminary observations drawn from these efforts.
Carrillo et al. (Thu,) studied this question.