Supreme Court grills Mexico over its $10 billion lawsuit against US gun manufacturers

The US Supreme Court’s justices Tuesday grilled the Mexican government over whether it should be allowed to pursue its $10 billion lawsuit against US gun manufacturers for allegedly helping to arm cartels.

Mexico slapped the lawsuit against multiple American gunmakers as well as a distributor in 2021, claiming they are partly to blame for the firearms that illegally flow to the drug cartels in the US’s southern neighbor, thus helping to inflict mass carnage on the country, by knowingly peddling to straw men.

“No case in history supports that theory,” argued Noel Francisco, the lawyer representing firearm manufacturer Smith & Wesson Brands, to the justices during Tuesday’s oral arguments.

“Indeed, if Mexico is right, then every law enforcement organization in America has missed the largest criminal conspiracy in history operating right under their nose, and Budweiser is liable for every accident caused by underage drinkers,” the defense lawyer said.

The case comes amid inflamed tensions between the US and Mexico as President Trump’s 25% across-the-board tariff targeting Mexican goods takes effect.

The high court does not have to grapple with the question of whether US gun manufacturers are liable for Mexico’s complaints, only whether a lower court ruling was correct in allowing Smith & Wesson v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos to proceed on its merits.

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision by June.

Lawyers on both sides of the case are battling over the US Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which provides liability protection against gun manufacturers.

Mexico’s team highlighted an exemption in that law enabling lawsuits to move ahead if a company “knowingly violated” the law.

Mexico says some US gun manufacturers unfairly lure Mexican buyers with items such as pistol with an image of the country’s revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata — and peddle the firearms through straw men who then funnel them to cartels.

But Francisco on Tuesday pointed to court precedent in the 2023 case of Twitter v. Taamneh, in which the social-media platform was not liable for aiding and abetting terrorist attacks because there was a lack of evidence that they knowingly helped ISIS.

The Mexican government’s lawyer, Catherine Stetson, shot back that the defendants “deliberately supply the illegal Mexican market by selling guns through the small number of dealers that they know sell a large number of crime guns.”

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan asked at one point, “What you don’t have is particular dealers, right?

“There are lots of dealers, and you’re just saying they know that some of them do, but which some of them?” she said.

Stetson cited a Washington Post article that listed “eight or 10 different dealers by name.”

Her answer did not appear to satisfy conservative Justices Amy Coney Barrett or Samuel Alito.

“Are there any allegations in the complaint that the two knowingly sell to specific red flag dealers?” Alito asked.

Stetson argued broadly that there remains evidence that gunmakers engage in a process of “continuing to sell guns to rogue dealers.”

But Barrett reiterated Alito’s question, still appearing to be unsatisfied with her answers.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh then pivoted back to the gunmakers’ arguments about the implications of Mexico’s stance when it comes to other industries.

“Lots of sellers and manufacturers of ordinary products know that they’re going to be misused by some subset of people. They know that to a certainty,” Kavanaugh said, citing cars and pharmaceuticals as examples.

The comment prompted Stetson to revisit Francisco’s example of Budweiser, and she suggested the beer company could be liable if it was “selling bulk quantities of Bud Light to liquor stores that were arranged next to high schools” and while “knowing that those liquor stores were regularly serving underage students.”

But liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson voiced concerns that Mexico didn’t have the caliber of evidence against gunmakers that Stetson mentioned in her Budweiser example.

“I worry that without that clarity in a complaint like yours, where we don’t really see exactly how the manufacturers are violating a particular state or federal law, that we’re running up against the very concerns that motivated this act to begin with,” Jackson said.

Acknowledging the general current tensions between Mexico and the US, Alito mused about whether Mexico would be partial to a lawsuit from Americans over similar grievances.

“There are Americans who think that Mexican government officials are contributing to a lot of illegal conduct here,” he noted. “So suppose that one of the 50 states sued the government of Mexico for aiding and abetting illegal conduct within the state’s borders that cause the state to incur, law enforcement costs, public welfare costs, other costs.

“Would your client be willing to litigate that case in the courts of the United States?” he asked.

Stetson demurred and said she wasn’t “comfortable giving away things like sovereign immunity on behalf of the government of Mexico.”

Trump overnight had slapped the 25% tariff on goods coming in from Mexico over his concerns that the southern neighbor isn’t doing enough to crack down on the flow of fentanyl and illegal immigration into the US.

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