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Gun companies argue suit is barred by a 2005 US law

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US firearms linked to many homicides in Mexico

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Arguments come at fraught time for US-Mexico ties

By John Kruzel, Blake Brittain

WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court

was set on Tuesday to hear a bid by two American gun companies

to throw out the Mexican government's lawsuit accusing them of

aiding illegal firearms trafficking to drug cartels and fueling

gun violence in the southern neighbor of the United States.

U.S. firearms maker Smith & Wesson and distributor

Interstate Arms have appealed a lower court's ruling that the

lawsuit could proceed on the grounds that Mexico has plausibly

alleged that the companies aided and abetted illegal gun sales,

harming the Mexican government.

The arguments before the justices come at a fraught time for

U.S.-Mexican relations as President Donald Trump pursues tariffs

on Mexican goods and accuses Mexico of doing too little to stop

the flow of synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and migrant

arrivals at the border.

At issue is whether Mexico's suit should be dismissed under

a 2005 federal law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in

Arms Act that broadly shields gun companies from liability for

crimes committed with their products - or whether the alleged

conduct of the companies falls outside these protections, as the

lower court found.

Mexico's lawsuit, filed in Boston in 2021, accused the gun

companies of violating various U.S. and Mexican laws. Mexico

claims that the companies have deliberately maintained a

distribution system that included firearms dealers who knowingly

sell weapons to third-party, or "straw," purchasers who then

traffic guns to cartels in Mexico.

The suit also accuses the companies of unlawfully designing

and marketing their guns as military-grade weapons to drive up

demand among the cartels, including by associating their

products with the American military and law enforcement.

Mexico is seeking monetary damages of an unspecified amount

and a court order requiring Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms

to take steps to "abate and remedy the public nuisance they have

created in Mexico."

Most of the 180,000 homicides involving guns in Mexico, a

country with strict firearms laws, from 2007 to 2019 were

committed with weapons trafficked from the United States,

according to court papers.

The gun companies argue that they have done nothing more

than make and sell lawful products.

"Every business knows its products may be misused - even

criminally so - by customers downstream," lawyers for the

companies wrote in a Supreme Court brief. "But such knowledge

has never been enough to generate criminal liability, lest the

entire economy grind to a halt."

Guns trafficked from the United States to Mexico - counting

those made by the defendants and other companies - are valued at

more than $250 million annually, according to court papers.

Mexico in a Supreme Court brief said the accused companies

"deliberately sell their guns through dealers who are known to

disproportionately sell firearms that are recovered at crime

scenes in Mexico," adding that they "intentionally do all this

to boost their bottom lines."

According to the lawsuit, gun violence fueled by trafficked

American-made firearms has contributed to a decline in business

investment and economic activity in Mexico, and forced its

government to incur unusually high costs on services including

healthcare, law enforcement and the military.

Mexico had originally sued seven U.S. gun manufacturers -

Smith & Wesson, Barrett, Beretta, Century Arms, Colt, Glock and

Ruger - as well as wholesale distributor Interstate Arms. Six

gun manufacturers later were removed from the case on procedural

grounds, leaving Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms as the

remaining defendants.

U.S. District Judge Dennis Saylor in Boston sided with the

gun companies in 2022 and threw out the case, finding that the

2005 federal law "seeks to prohibit exactly the type of claim

that is currently before this court."

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed

Saylor's decision in January 2024 and ruled that the suit could

proceed. The 1st Circuit ruled that Mexico had plausibly alleged

that the gun companies had aided and abetted violations of

federal laws prohibiting the sale and export of guns without a

license, and sales to straw purchasers - placing their alleged

conduct beyond the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.

The gun companies argued in a Supreme Court filing that

Mexico's suit seeks to "bully the industry into adopting a host

of gun-control measures that have been repeatedly rejected by

American voters."