Gary, Indiana’s lawsuit against gunmakers is shot down by a new law, after surviving 25 years of appeals

jeffw@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 84 points –
Gary, Indiana’s lawsuit against gunmakers is shot down by a new law, after surviving 25 years of appeals
theconversation.com
4

You are viewing a single comment

In 2015, Indiana’s then-governor, Mike Pence, signed a law making the state’s immunity law retroactive to Aug. 26, 1999, four days before the city of Gary initially filed its lawsuit.

How can you sign a retroactive law? Essentially making things legal which were illegal when they were committed and what about criminalising things which were legal? Could people be prosecuted for things that became crimes after they did them?

On the flip side there are states retroactively decriminalizing weed, so people with past offenses have their records erased

You can't criminalize an event that already happened, but you can decriminalize it.