The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously threw out Mexico’s multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the American gun industry 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.
Noel Francisco, a former solicitor general and current partner at Jones Day who argued the case on behalf of the gun industry, said the ruling vindicates the PLCAA’s core purpose is to protect the industry from criminal misuse of its products.
“As the Supreme Court recognized, the lawsuit filed by the government of Mexico is clearly an attempt to do just that and is just as clearly barred under PLCAA,” Francisco said in a statement.
“The narrow exceptions that sometimes apply to PLCAA are not relevant here. Our client makes a legal, constitutionally protected product that millions of Americans buy and use, and we are gratified that the Supreme Court agreed that we are not legally responsible for criminals misusing that product to hurt people, much less smuggling it to Mexico to be used by drug cartels,” he added.
The firearms industry was backed by gun rights groups including 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 including Everytown and March for our Lives Action Fund, roughly 40 Democratic lawmakers and Democratic state attorneys general from 16 states and Washington, D.C.
Updated at 1:44 p.m. EDT