The Supreme Court accepts gun manufacturers’ bid to end Mexican government’s lawsuit over cartel violence

Washington — The Supreme Court said Friday it will consider a bid by U.S. gun makers to end a lawsuit by the Mexican government that seeks to hold them liable for violence committed by drug cartels.

The case involves some of the country’s largest and best-known gun companies, including Smith & Wesson, Beretta and Glock. They are pushing the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that allowed the Mexican lawsuit against them to proceed despite a 2005 law that broadly shields the firearms industry from liability.

The case will be argued in the court’s next term starts on Monday. It is one of 15 new cases the judges added to the docket after considering a large number of appeals earlier this week.

The lawsuit stemmed from an August 2021 lawsuit filed by the Mexican government against seven U.S. gun manufacturers and one distributor, seeking to hold them liable for violence committed by drug cartels in the country.

The lawsuit alleges that the gun industry “supports and encourages” the cartels by engaging in certain business practices while knowing that the cartels have been able to smuggle their firearms across the southern border. Mexico specifically pointed to four different policies that it said confirmed its claim that the arms industry has “actively assisted and facilitated” terrorist groups on the U.S.-Mexico border for decades, including the decision to continue making and selling semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 and large capacity magazines.

The Mexican government also took issue with gun manufacturers’ marketing and production decisions, claiming they made their firearms easy to modify.

Mexico sought $10 billion in damages and an injunction banning so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and restrictions on the “multiple sales” of weapons.

A federal district court dismissed the Mexican lawsuit, citing a 2005 law that bars such lawsuits from being brought in U.S. courts. That law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA, protects law-abiding gun companies from liability for damages caused by criminal or unlawful misuse of their products. If a member of the firearms industry breaks the law, the liability shield can be lifted.

The law has been used in numerous lawsuits filed by cities and U.S. citizens who have tried to sue the gun industry for misusing their guns.

A federal appeals court has revived the Mexican government’s lawsuit, claiming it qualified for an exception under the 2005 law. The gun industry is asking the Supreme Court to reverse that decision, warning that this could open the door to a flood of lawsuits from other foreign and U.S. government agencies seeking to hold the firearms industry accountable for the violence committed by users of their weapons.

“Mexico’s multi-billion dollar lawsuit will hang over the U.S. firearms industry for years to come, involving costly and intrusive discoveries by a foreign sovereign trying to bully the industry into adopting a host of gun control measures that have been repeatedly announced. rejected by American voters,” attorneys for the firearms manufacturers warned the Supreme Court in a filing.