Indiana Supreme Court declines to reopen Gary lawsuit against gun manufacturers  

The Indiana Supreme Court on Thursday denied the transfer of the city of Gary’s lawsuit against several gun manufacturers and sellers, effectively ending a nearly 27-year-old effort to hold gun companies liable for firearms used in crimes.  

The court’s decision comes nearly five months after the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned a Lake Superior Court decision not to dismiss the lawsuit.  

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, who urged the appellate court to toss out the lawsuit in accordance with a 2024 Indiana law, celebrated the high court’s move in a press release Friday morning.  

“Over a quarter of a century after this lawsuit began, I am proud to be the Attorney General who has finally ended the City of Gary’s relentless campaign to harass the firearms industry,” Rokita said in the press release. “This huge victory prevents a single city or small group of cities from using baseless lawsuits to dictate how guns are sold across our entire state, ensuring that responsible, law-abiding citizens can continue to exercise their Second Amendment rights.” 

In August 1999, the city of Gary filed a lawsuit against several manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson Corp., accusing the defendants of failing to prevent their handguns from being sold into an illegitimate market, allowing the guns to be purchased by those who shouldn’t have them and causing harm to communities like Gary.  

The city argued that the manufacturers had the ability to enforce “responsible distribution practices,” such as screening gun distributors and dealers, but did not take those opportunities.  

Since its original filing, the lawsuit has sustained several separate appeals. 

At the crux of the case’s 2024 appeal was a 2024 Indiana law that prevents cities and counties from suing firearm manufacturers, sellers, dealers or trade associations. Only states can bring such lawsuits forward, according to the law.  

The law was made retroactive, meaning it applied to Gary’s lawsuit.  

In August 2024, a Lake Superior Court judge refused to dismiss the case, ruling that while the city hadn’t shown the state law to be unconstitutional at face value, applying it retroactively to terminate the lawsuit would violate Gary’s vested rights. Judge John Sedia ruled the Indiana General Assembly, in enacting the law, cannot effectively end the lawsuit.  

In its appellate opinion in December 2025, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that Gary failed to show that the retroactive application of the state’s law violated any vested right the city held and ordered the Lake Superior Court to dismiss the lawsuit. 

The city filed a petition to transfer the case to the Indiana Supreme Court in March, questioning whether the state legislature had the constitutional right to effectively                                        dismiss of a pending lawsuit by making a new law retroactive “to the exact day that the case was filed.” The law is retroactive to “before, after, or on August 27, 1999,” the date the city filed the original lawsuit.

All supreme court justices supported the denial to transfer except for Justice Christopher Goff, who voted to grant the petition to transfer.

The case is Smith & Wesson Corp., et al. v. City Of Gary, Indiana, 24A-CT-02381.