WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled sympathy on Tuesday toward a bid by two American gun companies to throw out the Mexican government’s lawsuit accusing them of aiding illegal firearms trafficking to drug cartels and fueling gun violence in the southern neighbor of the United States.
The justices heard arguments in an appeal by U.S. firearms maker Smith & Wesson and distributor Interstate Arms of a lower court’s ruling that the lawsuit could proceed on the grounds that Mexico has plausibly alleged that the companies aided and abetted illegal gun sales, harming its government.
The case comes before the Supreme Court at a fraught time for U.S.-Mexican relations as President Donald Trump pursues tariffs on Mexican goods and accuses Mexico of doing too little to stop the flow of synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and migrant arrivals at the border.
At issue is whether Mexico’s suit should be dismissed under a 2005 federal law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that broadly shields gun companies from liability for crimes committed with their products – or whether the alleged conduct of the companies falls outside these protections, as the lower court found.
Mexico’s lawsuit, filed in Boston in 2021, accused the gun companies of violating various U.S. and Mexican laws. Mexico claims that the companies have deliberately maintained a distribution system that included firearms dealers who knowingly sell weapons to third-party, or “straw,” purchasers who then traffic guns to cartels in Mexico.
The suit also accuses the companies of unlawfully designing and marketing their guns as military-grade weapons to drive up demand among the cartels, including by associating their products with the American military and law enforcement.
The gun companies have argued that they have done nothing more than make and sell lawful products.
“If Mexico is right, then every law enforcement organization in America has missed the largest criminal conspiracy in history operating right under their nose, and (beer maker) Budweiser is liable for every accident caused by underage drinkers since it knows that teenagers will buy beer, drive drunk and crash,” Noel Francisco, the lawyer arguing for the gun companies, told the justices.
Some of the justices echoed this concern. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Catherine Stetson, the lawyer arguing for Mexico, to address the argument by the gun companies that Mexico’s theory of liability risked threatening the U.S. economy.
“Lots of sellers and manufacturers of ordinary products know that they’re going to be misused by some subset of people. They know that to a certainty, that it’s going to be pharmaceuticals, cars – what you can name, lots of products. So that’s a real concern, I think, for me, about accepting your theory of aiding and abetting liability,” Kavanaugh told Stetson.
‘THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING’
The task before the Supreme Court is merely to decide whether the case can proceed, Stetson told the justices.
“We are at the beginning of the beginning of this case. This court need not vouch for Mexico’s allegations, but it must assume they are true,” Stetson said. “Mexico should be given a chance to prove its case.”
According to the lawsuit, gun violence fueled by trafficked American-made firearms has contributed to a decline in business investment and economic activity in Mexico, and forced its government to incur unusually high costs on services including healthcare, law enforcement and the military.
Francisco cited a legal principle called proximate cause involving when an action brings about a legal injury, and argued that the gun companies were not the proximate cause of the harms claimed by Mexico.
In its lawsuit, Mexico must show that the gun companies were the proximate cause of their harms, in addition to showing that the companies aided and abetted illegal gun sales and marketing, to sidestep the 2005 law’s general bar on suits against American gun companies for the criminal misuse of their products.
Addressing Francisco, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts asked, “Counsel, the complaint says that 2% of the guns manufactured in the United States find their way into Mexico. And I know you dispute that, but is there a number where your legal analysis might have to be altered – if it’s 10%, if it’s 20%? At some point, the proximate cause lines that you draw really can’t bear the weight of the ultimate result.”
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed sympathetic to Mexico’s theory of the role played by the gun companies in causing the legal injury to Mexico’s government.
“We know that a straw seller is going to sell to someone who is going to use the gun illegally, because if they weren’t they wouldn’t use the straw purchaser – and that illegal conduct is going to cause harm, and harm like this that the gun is going to be used in some way to injure people, correct?” Sotomayor asked Stetson.
Mexico is seeking monetary damages of an unspecified amount and a court order requiring Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms to take steps to “abate and remedy the public nuisance they have created in Mexico.”
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson expressed concern that Mexico was seeking relief that went beyond the power of U.S. courts to authorize.
“All of the things that you asked for in this lawsuit” – like changes to the firearm industry’s safety, distribution and marketing practices – “would amount to different kinds of regulatory constraints that I’m thinking Congress didn’t want the courts to be the ones to impose,” Jackson told Stetson.
Most homicides involving guns in Mexico, a country with strict firearms laws, are committed with weapons trafficked from the United States, according to court papers.
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito pressed Stetson on whether the legal theory presented by the Mexican government in the case could be used against it in other hypothetical litigation.
“There are Americans who think that Mexican government officials are contributing to a lot of illegal conduct here (in the United States). So suppose that one of the 50 U.S. states sued for aiding and abetting within the state’s borders that causes the state to incur law enforcement costs, welfare costs, other costs,” Alito told Stetson. “Would your client be willing to litigate that case in the courts of the United States?”
U.S. District Judge Dennis Saylor in Boston sided with the gun companies in 2022 and threw out the lawsuit. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Saylor’s decision in January 2024 and ruled that the suit could proceed.
A ruling in the case is expected by the end of June.
(Reporting by John Kruzel and Blake Brittain; Editing by Will Dunham)
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