Gun Violence And Product Liability: Distribution And Design Defect Negligence

Canada’s response to gun violence has mostly relied on criminal or penal laws, such as border enforcement, licence suspensions, as well as gang-prevention funding. Product liability law offers a different approach to address gun violence. It examines the liability of manufacturers and distributors for foreseeable harm caused by their products and business practices. This is similar to how courts have held opioid, tobacco and talcum powder manufacturers liable for their products and practices. A 2024 lawsuit filed by a U.S. State Attorney General against Glock, Inc. and its Austrian counterpart alleges the companies negligently design and distribute guns to irresponsible dealers, which fuels a “gun violence epidemic.” In October 2025, the court allowed the case to proceed, denying Glock’s motion to dismiss. With firearms, including Glocks, repeatedly being trafficked into Canada from the U.S. and seized in Ontario crimes, could gun manufacturers and distributors be held liable in Ontario?

Canada’s Current Crime-Centric Approach to Gun Violence

Public strategies to reduce gun violence have been framed in terms of criminal or penal law, which involves law enforcement. Examples include:

• strategies to strengthen border control of illegal trafficking and smuggling of firearms;
• expanding power to revoke a firearm licence;
• temporary firearm licence suspensions;
• prohibitions on assault-style guns;
• enhancing intelligence of street gangs;
• funding to prevent youth gangs;
• increasing prosecution capacity; and
• federal funding to provinces and territories through the Gun and Gang Violence Action Fund.

Budget 2018 allotted up to $327.6 million over five years for The Initiative to Take Action against Gun and Gang Violence. On March 31, 2026, the federal government announced its intent to extend another $157.5 million over three years.

Despite these strategies, gun violence and trafficking of guns from the U.S. to Canada poses a continuing threat to public safety. Strategies on gun violence have to date been crime-centric and have failed to emphasize accountability on the gun industry.

Product Liability Law: Application to Gun Violence

Product liability law offers a different approach to address gun violence. It centers a risky or harmful product, such as a gun, and examines liability of those in its distributive chain, such as manufacturers, marketers, and distributors. A product liability approach recognizes that manufacturers and distributors often exert the greatest control over their product’s circulation. They are often in the best position to control foreseeable harm of a risky product and can do so most cost-efficiently.

Precedents: Opioids, Tobacco, and Talcum Powder

Product liability lawsuits have long been used to impose accountability on manufacturers and distributors for risky and harmful products that they design and sell. Manufacturers and distributors of opioids, tobacco and talcum powder are examples of corporations that have been held liable for harms caused to users, consumers, and governments.

U.S. State Lawsuit Against Glock: Negligencein Design and Distribution

In a Complaint filed in 2024, Matthew J. Platkin, the then-Attorney General of the State of New Jersey, sued Glock, Inc., and Glock Ges.m.b.H, an Austrian company, alleging that their guns are frequently recovered by law enforcement “in connection with homicides, aggravated assaults, robberies, burglaries, carjackings, and crimes involving minors—both as victims and perpetrators”, causing a “gun violence epidemic”.

Canada: Repeated Seizures of Glocks at Crime Scenes

In Ontario and Canada, Glock-brand firearms are also frequently seized by law enforcement in connection with similar criminal activities. Examples include:

• in 2021, the RCMP seized 249 Glock guns near the border in Dundee, Quebec.
• on April 29, 2026, Sarnia Police Service identified that a Glock handgun was the weapon used in the killing of a 20-year-old individual in Sarnia, Ontario.
• on June 7, 2026, Hamilton Police Service located a Glock handgun found on the front passenger seat during a search of a stolen vehicle;
• on June 16, 2026, in a criminal-for-hire investigation, the Toronto Police Service reported that investigators believed a loaded Glock firearm was behind the U.S. consulate shooting in downtown Toronto in March 2026, which they believe is linked with at least six other shooting incidents;
• on July 15, 2026, Hamilton Police Service seized a loaded Glock handgun during a drug investigation.

Could Glock Be Held Liable in Ontario?

The New Jersey Complaint alleges that Glock, Inc. and Glock Ges.m.b.H. have “deliberately designed, manufactured, marketed and distributed handguns” to make them easily modifiable into machine guns capable of firing 1,200 bullets per minute, which is attractive to criminals. They are also alleged to have distributed their guns to authorized dealers, some of whom are “known outsized sources of crime guns.” The Complaint specifically alleges that “Glock provides direct marketing benefits to these dealers and exercises significant contractual control over their operations.” In October 2025, the Superior Court of New Jersey denied Glock, Inc.’s, and Glock Ges.m.b.H’s motion to dismiss the Complaint on each of their arguments.

One of Glock, Inc.’s, and Glock Ges.m.b.H’s arguments made in its attempt to dismiss the Complaint, which the Court rejected as a legal principle, was that “a criminal act by a third-party user severs proximate causation.” The Defendants’ argument reflects the slogan, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” which points to criminals and detracts from industry accountability

Guns could be designed in a safer manner by incorporating personalized gun technology, such as with biometrics and fingerprinting to ensure only lawful, responsible users can fire guns, and by preventing their easy modification into automatic weapons.

In Ontario, one key question is whether gun trafficking from the U.S. to Canada is a direct foreseeable consequence of business decisions by U.S. gun manufacturers and dealers. If guns were sold more responsibly, they would be much less likely to be trafficked into Canada.

Product Liability Litigation as a Public Safety Tool

Product liability litigation as an approach to gun violence focuses attention on the product, a gun, to assess liability, most commonly of manufacturers and distributors. It offers a potential tool to enhance public safety to encourage the safer distribution and design of guns through industry accountability.