Supreme Court blocks Mexico’s suit against US gunmakers

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit by the Mexican government against U.S. gun manufacturers that attempted to hold them responsible for drug cartel violence.

In a unanimous decision written by Justice Elena Kagan, the court held that U.S. legislation that shields gunmakers from liability in certain cases barred the lawsuit. Mexico, she wrote, had not plausibly argued that American gun manufacturers had aided and abetted gun dealers’ unlawful sales to Mexican drug traffickers.

Mexico had claimed that the gun industry’s production and sale of arms in the United States helped fuel and supply drug cartels, harming the Mexican government. Mexican government lawyers also claimed the companies were aware that some of their guns were illegally trafficked and that the country should therefore be allowed to sue under an exception in the law.

During an oral argument in early March, a majority of the justices appeared skeptical that Mexico could prove a direct link between gunmakers and cartel violence. Several justices appeared convinced that a 2005 law shielding gunmakers and distributors from most domestic lawsuits over injuries caused by firearms would also apply to the case brought by the Mexican government.

The case began in 2021 when Mexico filed a lawsuit against a number of American gunmakers and one distributor. The country asked them for $10 billion in damages.

In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the Mexican government alleged that the gun industry’s actions had burdened the nation’s police, military and judicial system. Mexico also argued that the U.S. gun industry had been negligent in marketing, distributing and selling high-capacity guns.

In response, the gun industry argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because such suits were prohibited by the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. That legislation was signed into law after several U.S. communities had sued firearms defendants for gun violence harms to their communities. As Kagan wrote, that flurry of lawsuits prompted Congress to shield manufacturers from liability “for the downstream harms resulting from misuse of their products.”

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