The Firearms Policy Coalition’s blunt dismissal of the SHOT Act as “not nearly enough” to protect the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) should be read as a warning shot across the bow of every pro-2A lawmaker. PLCAA has been the single most effective legal shield keeping politically motivated lawsuits from bankrupting the firearms industry, yet the bill’s opponents have spent two decades chipping away at it through novel liability theories and state-level “public nuisance” statutes. The SHOT Act’s narrow fixes—mostly clarifying that e-commerce platforms aren’t “sellers” under PLCAA—may close one loophole, but they leave the statute exposed to the next wave of litigation that will inevitably target distributors, trade groups, and even gun ranges. In short, Congress is still playing defense with a statute that needs a comprehensive, forward-looking overhaul.

What the 2A community should demand is a PLCAA 2.0 that not only plugs existing gaps but also preempts the emerging tactics being tested in courts from coast to coast. That means explicit language barring suits against upstream suppliers for downstream criminal misuse, codifying the principle that design-defect claims cannot be used to outlaw entire categories of firearms, and—most critically—creating a federal cause of action that lets manufacturers recover attorney’s fees when frivolous suits are dismissed. Without these reinforcements, every new Congress will face the same ritual: a handful of high-profile shootings followed by a fresh round of lawsuits designed to bleed the industry dry. FPC’s message is clear: if legislators truly want to defend the right to keep and bear arms, they must stop offering half-measures and start treating PLCAA like the constitutional infrastructure it is.