The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to Mexico’s lawsuit against US arms companies

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a bid by U.S. gunmaker Smith & Wesson SWBI.O and firearms wholesaler Interstate Arms to drop a lawsuit by Mexico that accuses them of aiding the illegal trafficking of firearms to Mexican drug cartels.

The justices accepted the two companies’ appeal against a lower court’s refusal to dismiss Mexico’s lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Boston in 2021, under a 2005 US law that broadly shields gun companies from liability for crimes committed with their products.

The Supreme Court is set to hear the case during its nine-month term, which begins Monday.

Mexico initially sued seven US gun manufacturers – Smith & Wesson, Barrett, Beretta, Century Arms, Colt, Glock and Ruger – as well as Interstate Arms. Six gun manufacturers were later dropped from the case for procedural reasons, leaving Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms as the remaining defendants.

The nine-count complaint included allegations that the companies violated state laws by aiding and abetting the trafficking of weapons to Mexican drug cartels, helping to fuel what Mexico called an “epidemic of violence.”

The suit accused the gun companies of illegally designing and marketing their products to increase demand among cartels, including by associating their “civilian” products with the US military and law enforcement.

It also accused the companies of knowingly maintaining a distribution system that includes firearms dealers conspiring with third-party buyers, or “straw,” who traffic guns to cartels in Mexico.

“Defendants use this head-in-the-sand approach to deny responsibility while knowingly profiting from the criminal trade,” Mexico’s lawsuit says.

The estimated value of all guns trafficked from the United States to Mexico — including those made by the defendants and other manufacturers — totaled more than $250 million annually, according to the suit.

Mexico is seeking an unspecified amount in monetary damages, estimated to be in the billions of dollars, and a court order requiring the arms companies to take steps to “alleviate and remedy the public nuisance they have created in Mexico.”

Most of the 180,000 gun homicides in Mexico, a country with strict gun laws, from 2007 to 2019 were committed with weapons trafficked from the United States, according to court filings in the case.

According to a 2021 report by the University, up to two-thirds of the intentional homicides in Mexico in recent years showed signs of organized crime, including the use of high-powered weapons, multiple victims, evidence of torture and messages linked to specific criminal groups. from San Diego.

According to the lawsuit, gun violence fueled by U.S.-made firearms has contributed to a decline in business investment and economic activity in Mexico and forced its government to bear unusually high costs for services including health care, law enforcement and the army.

The gun companies, seeking to dismiss the suit, argued that the litigation was barred by a 2005 federal law known as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act, which shields firearms manufacturers and distributors from liability for criminal misuse of firearms. their products.

U.S. District Judge Dennis Saylor in Boston sided with the companies in 2022 and dismissed the case, finding that the law “seeks to bar exactly the type of claim that is currently before this court.”

On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston overturned Saylor’s decision in January and ruled that the trial could continue. The First Circuit found that Mexico had plausibly alleged that U.S. gun companies “aided and abetted the illegal downstream trafficking of their weapons into Mexico,” causing injury to the government—conduct that fell outside the protections of that law.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the companies argued that the lawsuit seeks “to bully the industry into passing a series of gun control measures that have been repeatedly rejected by American voters.”

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)

TOPICS
Lawsuits Mexico Weapons Liability