About
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done. --Louis Brandeis
The On Par Project is a national movement started in 2021 that advocates for restoring standard corpporate accountability in the firearm industry that was removed by the Protection in Lawful Commerce Act (PLCAA) in 2005.
State by state, we advocate passing a model law to satisfy a two-fold objective: 1. to relieve the public of an unfair financial burden and 2. to establish a first-payer fund, financed 100% by licensed firearm manufacturers, to pay medical, funeral, and other direct costs costs associated with shootings from all causes.
OUR ORIGINS
Our research and legislative proposal, begun in 2021, is a novel synthesis of the experience of a business owner, expanded and quantified by the empirical research of health economist, Dr. Zirui Song, a practicing physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor at the Harvard Medical School; and economist, public health practioner and injury prevention expert, David Hemenway, among others. In addition, we've relied on data generously provided by Everytown, Giffords, and Brady United.
First organized as The RIFL (Responsibility in Firearm Legislation) Alliance in 2023 which circulated a comprehensive bill in the Illinois legislature in 2025, we became incorporated as The On Par Project in 2025 to emphasize the need for parity and bi-partisan support for a bill that aims to relieve taxpayers and businesses from an unfair burden and protects the injured from out of pocket expensess. To a large degree, our first payer fund is modeled on a hybrid of Workers Compensation and the states Guaranty Associations, universal in the insurance industry.
Our non-partisan collective welcomes taxpayers, employers, professional associations, including those in the insurance industry; hospital associations; faith based organizations; labor unions; mental health organizations; veterans associations, individuals and neighborhood organizations; hunters and other responsible firearms owners among other individuals and affinity groups.
On Par's ultimate goal is to motivate the firearm industry to engage with elected officials, business leaders, law enforcement officials, and constituents for common sense gun legislation to reduce firearm injury.
Corporations in every other industry in America are held accountable for the harms caused by the goods and services they produce for profit, whether that enterprise is the construction of a high-rise apartment building, the manufacturing of an automobile or the sale of a property. Bringing the firearms industry on par with these corporations ensures that the same rules apply to all businesses in every industry in the United States.