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Gun companies said suit was barred by a 2005 US law

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Mexico decries trafficking of US guns to drug cartels

By John Kruzel

WASHINGTON, June 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on

Thursday spared two American gun companies from a lawsuit by

Mexico's government accusing them of aiding illegal firearms

trafficking to drug cartels and fueling gun violence in the

southern neighbor of the United States.

The justices in a 9-0 ruling overturned a lower court's

ruling that had allowed the lawsuit to proceed against firearms

maker Smith & Wesson and distributor Interstate Arms.

The lower court had found that Mexico plausibly alleged that the

companies aided and abetted illegal gun sales, harming its

government.

The companies had argued for the dismissal of Mexico's suit,

filed in Boston in 2021, under a 2005 U.S. law called the

Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that broadly shields

gun companies from liability for crimes committed with their

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

decided in 2024 that the alleged conduct by the companies fell

outside these protections.

The case came to the Supreme Court at a complicated time for

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

on-again, off-again tariffs on Mexican goods. Trump has also

accused Mexico of doing too little to stop the flow of synthetic

drugs such as fentanyl and migrant arrivals at the border.

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

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 accused 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. The gun

companies said they make and sell lawful products.

To avoid its lawsuit being dismissed under the 2005 law,

Mexico was required to plausibly allege that the companies aided

and abetted illegal gun sales and that such conduct was the

"proximate cause" - a legal principle involving who is

responsible for causing an injury - of the harms claimed by

Mexico.

Mexico in the lawsuit sought 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."

Gun violence fueled by trafficked U.S.-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, according to the lawsuit.

Mexico, a country with strict firearms laws, has said most

of its gun homicides are committed with weapons trafficked from

the United States and valued at more than $250 million annually.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on March 4.