(Reuters) – A gun industry trade association has sued New Jersey and Delaware seeking to block recently passed state laws authorizing the states’ attorneys general to sue gun manufacturers and sellers over gun violence.

The lawsuits, filed Wednesday in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey and Wilmington, Delaware by the Connecticut-based National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), both call the laws “breathtaking in scope” and say that they illegally “allow judges and juries to impose liability based on truthful, non-misleading speech about lawful products,” including on companies in other states.

“This is just the latest callous and desperate attempt to protect the profits of the firearm industry at the expense of public safety and the victims of senseless gun violence,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement. “We look forward to defending our law in court.”

The office of Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Delaware passed its law in late June, and New Jersey followed suit in early July. Both laws allow the state attorney general to sue gun manufacturers and sellers that recklessly contribute to a “public nuisance” that threatens New Jerseyans’ health and safety, for example through allegedly dangerous marketing or failing to prevent illegal trafficking.

Under the laws, such cases can seek orders prohibiting certain conduct, as well as money needed to address the harms of gun violence.

Lawsuits seeking to hold the gun industry liable for gun violence have been hobbled by a 2005 federal law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which largely shields companies from liability stemming from lawful gun sales.

NSSF claims that the new state laws are attempted end-runs around both that law and the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen expanding gun rights nationwide.

The group is challenging the laws on multiple grounds. It claims that they violate the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause by regulating commerce in other states, the 1st Amendment by potentially allowing liability for truthful advertisements, the 2nd Amendment by burdening the right to bear arms and the due process clause by holding companies liable for the conduct of others.

NSSF in May lost a challenge to a similar New York public nuisance law.

Gun control has long been politically divisive in the United States, championed by Democrats and opposed by Republicans, though President Joe Biden in June signed a bipartisan national gun safety bill. That measure, the first major federal gun reform in three decades, came in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York that killed more than 30 people, including 19 children at an elementary school.

The cases are National Shooting Sports Foundation v. Platkin, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, No. 3:22-cv-06646, and National Shooting Sports Foundation v. Jennings, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware, No. 1:22-cv-01499.

For NSSF: Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy

For the states: not available

(NOTE: This story has been updated to include a second lawsuit, against Delaware, and a comment from New Jersey.)

Read more:

U.S. Supreme Court expands gun rights, strikes down New York law

Gunmakers lose challenge to New York law allowing lawsuits against industry

Biden signs gun safety bill into law, takes swipe at Supreme Court

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.