Gun manufacturers call on US Supreme Court to hear appeal in Mexico lawsuit

US gun makers appealed to the US Supreme Court on Thursday (April 18) to hear their challenge to a $10-billion lawsuit by Mexico seeking to hold them liable for facilitating the trafficking of firearms to drug cartels across the US-Mexico border, Reuters reported.

Eight companies, including Smith & Wesson Brands and Sturm, Ruger & Co, argued that the lower court wrongly concluded that the case required an exception to a US law that granted the firearms industry broad protection from lawsuits over misuse of their products.

The trial judge dismissed the case, citing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. However, the Boston-based 1^st US Circuit Court of Appeals found in January that Mexico’s claims fell within a narrow exception to the liability shield. The 1^st Circuit also found that Mexico had plausibly alleged that the business practices of seven arms manufacturers and one distributor contributed to illicit arms trafficking to Mexico.

The companies told the US Supreme Court on Thursday that the 1^st Circuit’s decision contradicted past high court precedents and should never be allowed to advance.

Mexico’s suit has no business in an American court.

The companies argued that without intervention by the US Supreme Court, the US firearms industry would face years of costly litigation from “a foreign sovereign that is trying to bully the industry into adopting a host of gun-control measures that have been repeatedly rejected by American voters.”

Alejandro Celorio, legal adviser to Mexico’s foreign ministry, stated that the county would “follow up on this request and will be ready in case the Supreme Court decides to admit the matter for study.”

In its lawsuit, filed in 2021, Mexico alleged that the companies violated strict gun laws by developing, selling and distributing military-type assault weapons in ways they claimed would weaponise drug cartels, fuelling murder, extortion and kidnapping in the country.

Mexico claimed that over 500,000 weapons were being imported from the US each year, more than 68% of which were manufactured by the companies it sued. Mexico also argued that smuggling has resulted in a high rate of firearm-related deaths, a decline in investment and economic activity, and the need for increased spending on law enforcement and public safety.