7 Top Law Firms Launch the Firearms Accountability Counsel Taskforce (FACT)

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December 7, 2016 —Today, Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS), the gun violence prevention organization founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, combat veteran and retired NASA astronaut Captain Mark Kelly, and its partner organization the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, announced a bold new effort with seven top law firms, as well as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brennan Center for Justice, to fight gun violence. This new effort, the Firearms Accountability Counsel Taskforce (FACT), will be devoted to pursuing legal strategies to address America’s dire gun violence crisis and hold the gun industry responsible for unfair business practices that endanger public safety.

The law firms have committed hundreds of lawyers, thousands of hours, and millions of dollars to this effort, which will operate in tight coordination with ARS and the Law Center’s team of gun law experts. To date, FACT is comprised of Arnold & Porter; Covington; Dentons; Hogan Lovells; Munger Tolles & Olson; O’Melveny; and Paul, Weiss.

FACT’s strategy represents a turning point for the gun violence prevention movement. With the gun lobby spending a record $30 million in the presidential election to support Donald Trump, more than any other special interest, and an additional $20 million in 2016 Congressional races, achieving progress at the federal level has grown all the more challenging. By expanding the fight beyond Congress, which has failed to take meaningful action to save the more than 33,000 lives lost every year to gun violence, and into the justice system, FACT will be able to push back against the special treatment the gun industry has enjoyed for decades.

FACT’s strategy builds off the success of pro bono efforts by the private bar to commit leadership, support, and resources to ensure a more just, fair, equal, and safe society.

FACT’s areas of focus will include:

◾Congressional restrictions on firearms-related information access

◾Misleading gun industry public statements, advertising, and marketing

◾Special immunity enjoyed by gun manufacturers and dealers

◾Laws that prevent local officials from keeping communities safe from gun violence

◾Dangerous, gun lobby-backed laws that make ordinary conflicts potentially deadly

http://americansforresponsiblesolutions.org/news/

This is the very same strategy that the right-wing NRA/ALEC/Koch Brothers cabal used over the years to sell more and more lethal, unregulated, weapons that have flooded our neighborhoods and public venues.

As one of the FACT attorneys stated: “As our firm and the private bar have shown, the only effective means of remedying an intractable social injustice in the face of concerted resistance is through an innovative legal strategy and the investment of substantial resources,” said Brad Karp, chair of Paul, Weiss, a key law firm partner in the Firearms Accountability Counsel Taskforce.