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>plain old negligence from the lawsuits that specifically go after immunity carve-outs in the PLCAA.

Negligence is a cause of action based on elements of duty and breach of said duty. So the question becomes what was the duty of the manufacture and how was said duty breach (the theory of the claim is very fact specific, there isn't really a "plain old negligence" theory). You are right about the proximate cause, that is another element of negligence claims that must be proven, meaning there must be a proximate cause between the breach of the duty and the damages...meaning there could be a duty and even a breach of said duty, but no liability because the breach was not the proximate cause of the damages (this really gets into the weeds of case law).

>The tech industry must have better lobbyists than the gun industry.

Its not about the quality of the lobbyists, NRA and big tech likely use the very same lobbyists, its about spend. Because of the proliferation of mass shootings almost every knows about the NRA and pro gun rights groups, meanwhile almost no one knows about big tech lobbying, and they might be surprised to learn how much big tech outspends NRA/gun rights...big tech spent $500M in the last decade lobbying.