A lawsuit brought by the Mexican government was turned down by the US Supreme Court, alleging that Smith & and Wesson failed to stop the sale of illegal firearms to cartels and organized crime.
The Supreme Court of Justice ruled in one of the numerous decisions on Thursday that the Protection of Legal Commerce in Arms Act protected the manufacturers of firearms from Mexico’s lawsuit.
The court reached an unanimous decision. Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the nine-member bench, arguing that even “indifference” to the trafficking of firearms does not constitute willfully supporting a criminal enterprise.
The defendant manufacturers “did not plausibly allege that the defendant manufacturers aided and assisted” Mexican gun dealers in their illegal sales to Mexican traffickers,” Kagan wrote (PDF).
“Some such sales take place, as the complaint claims, and the manufacturers are aware of this,” the complaint claims. Mexico hasn’t, however, adequately argued that it should “participate in” those sales.
She continued, “the complaint from the Mexican government does not specifically identify any specific criminal transactions that the defendants (allegedly) assisted,” as most aiding-and-abetting claims do.”
A complaint was filed in a federal court in Boston, Massachusetts in August 2021. The Mexican government, which was then led by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, claimed that the country’s sheer volume of illegal firearms was evidence of negligence on the part of gun manufacturers in that initial complaint.
According to the report, those weapons had wrought a devastating impact on Mexican society. The United Nations estimates that for every 100 000 people killed intentionally in the country in 2023, there will be nearly 25 of those deaths. This is one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
Cartels and other criminal organizations that are active in Mexico have contributed to a large portion of that crime. According to the Igarape Institute, a think tank based in Brazil, Mexico’s crime cost the nation nearly 1.92 percent of its GDP between 2010 and 2014, according to estimates from the Igarape Institute.
The US manufactures the most weapons in the world and has the biggest stock of firearms that isn’t sourced elsewhere.
For instance, the “iron river” refers to the stream of firearms that enters Mexico and the rest of Latin America. According to the Department of Justice, nearly 70% of the illegal weapons seized in Mexico between 2014 and 2018 were sourced from the US.
Countries like Mexico have since called on the US to take action to reduce the volume of firearm traffic in other countries.
In its lawsuit, Mexico targeted some of the biggest names in US gun production, including Smith & and Wesson as well as businesses like Beretta USA, Glock Inc., and Colt’s Manufacturing LLC.
The gun manufacturers argued that they could not be held accountable for criminal behavior in another country, so they fought back against the lawsuit.
Some of Mexico’s arguments were questioned by the Supreme Court, including the notion that the gun manufacturers had created and sold their goods specifically for cartel buyers.
Although Mexico focuses on producing “military style” assault weapons, regular people in the country can purchase these items legally. Because Mexican cartel members also favor these weapons, manufacturers cannot be held accountable for supporting criminal activity, according to Justice Kagan.
She continued, “The same applies to firearms that have names or symbols in Spanish that reference Mexican history.” They may appeal to “millions of law-abiding Hispanic Americans,” the cartels claim.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), a trade association for the industry, praised the Supreme Court’s decision as a “tremendous victory” in the fight against unfair charges on Thursday. In support of the defendants in the case, it had filed an amicus brief.
Gun control activists have been trying for too long to demonize the highly regulated U.S. firearms industry through violent organized crime, both domestically and internationally, according to the group’s senior vice president, Lawrence G. Keane.
Keane added that he and other members of the firearms industry were “sympathetic to the plight of those in Mexico who are victims of rampant and uncontrolled violence committed by narco-terrorist drug cartels.”
