The Supreme Court unanimously threw out Mexico’s multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against the American gun industry on Thursday that sought to usher in major changes to firearm sales by holding companies liable for cartel violence.
Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the majority, said the lawsuit is barred by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a 2005 federal law that has provided firearms manufacturers broad legal immunity and come under criticism under from gun control advocates.
Mexico claimed its lawsuit fell under an exception to the PLCAA that still permits lawsuits when a company “knowingly violated” firearms laws and the violation proximately harmed the person suing.
“But that exception, if Mexico’s suit fell within it, would swallow most of the rule,” Kagan wrote. “We doubt Congress intended to draft such a capacious way out of PLCAA, and in fact it did not.”
Mexico sued seven firearms manufacturers and one wholesaler in 2021, including Smith & Wesson and Glock, alleging they aided and abetted violence south of the border by not doing more to stop their guns from falling into Mexican cartels’ hands. Most of the companies had since been dismissed from the lawsuit on other grounds, but two remained.
The country sought $10 billion damages and a court injunction that would mandate various restrictions on how the companies could market and distribute guns. The Supreme Court took up the companies’ appeal after a lower court allowed the lawsuit to proceed.
The firearms industry was backed by gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association and the Firearms Policy Coalition, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his leadership team, more than three dozen other Republican lawmakers, 26 Republican state attorneys general and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Mexico was backed by gun control groups like Everytown and March for our Lives Action Fund, roughly 40 Democratic lawmakers and Democratic state attorneys general from Washington, D.C. and 16 states.