The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Mexican government cannot sue Smith & Wesson and other gun manufacturers for violence committed in Mexico with American-made weapons. Mexico wanted to sue for $10 billion in damages, but the justices said it is not plausible that gun manufacturers aided and abetted gun traffickers, and therefore, they are not liable.
Mexico made what the justices described as a general accusation: gun manufacturers knowingly provide their weapons to retailers who illegally sell them to criminals who then smuggle them to Mexico. The complaint claimed the manufacturers are responsible because they failed to implement controls on their distribution networks to prevent illegal sales.
The problem is that Mexico did not name a single retailer accused of illegal sales and did not prove that manufacturers know of a single, specific retailer who is breaking the law. Lawyers for Mexico also couldn’t overcome the fact that gun manufacturers don’t provide their weapons directly to retailers; they give them to distributors who sell them to retailers. So there’s another party between the distributors and the smugglers.
“Mexico does not pinpoint, as most aiding-and-abetting claims do, any specific criminal transactions that the defendants (allegedly) assisted,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the unanimous opinion. “To aid and abet a crime, a person must take an affirmative act in furtherance of the offense and intend to facilitate its commission.”
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act prohibits lawsuits against gun manufacturers and retailers for crimes committed by a third party. There is an exception for manufacturers or retailers who “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing” of the gun, and the “violation was a proximate cause of the harm.”
During oral arguments, attorneys for the gun manufacturers argued they aren’t even partly responsible because there are a number of intervening, independent crimes that take place before the gun is used to commit acts of violence in Mexico. Those crimes include a fake purchase and cross-border trafficking.
Attorneys for Mexico argued the gun manufacturers are responsible because the unlawful use of their product was foreseeable, and manufacturers are aware that it happens.
According to data from the Mexican government, approximately 200,000 guns are smuggled into the country every year from the United States, and up to 90% of the guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico originated in the United States. The lawsuit states that over $250 million worth of firearms are trafficked into Mexico each year.
The Supreme Court admitted that Mexico has a “severe gun violence problem.” However, it determined that illegal acts are too far removed from the manufacturer to hold them accountable.
