WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday weighs the fate of a lawsuit the Mexican government filed seeking to hold U.S. gun makers accountable for an epidemic of violence that officials in Mexico say can be traced to their products.
The justices will hear oral arguments on the gun companies’ request to throw out the lawsuit.
The case reaches the court amid increased tensions between American and Mexican leaders following the election of President Donald Trump, who has sought to stem the flow of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, citing drug trafficking and gang violence.
Trump has announced new tariffs against Mexico that went into effect Tuesday, and his administration has designated Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum recently responded by saying her country would crack down on gun smuggling from the United States.
Democrats in Washington have introduced legislation intended to reduce the flow of guns across the border, which they estimate to total at least 200,000 a year.
In the 2021 lawsuit, the Mexican government accused Smith & Wesson, Colt and other companies of deliberately selling guns to dealers who sell products that are often later recovered at crime scenes in Mexico. The government seeks up to $10 billion in damages.
Gun dealers, lawyers for Mexico say in court papers, often sell the firearms to “straw purchasers” whose intent is to traffic the guns across the border. The companies even design certain weapons to appeal to cartel members, including a Colt handgun known as the Super El Jefe, the lawyers say.
Mexico has suffered as a result, the lawyers argue, with dozens of police officers and military personnel killed or injured. The lawsuit includes negligence and public nuisance claims.
The case at the Supreme Court involves two companies — Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms — with other manufacturers, including Glock and Colt, successfully having had claims against them tossed out.
At issue is a U.S. law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which restricts lawsuits against arms manufacturers. The gunmakers say the law applies to the Mexico lawsuit, meaning the entire complaint should be dismissed.
In court papers, lawyers for the gunmakers say the federal law protects them from any liability that results from “criminal or unlawful misuse” of a firearm by a third party.
“It is hard to imagine a suit more clearly barred” by the law, they wrote.
Mexico’s legal team is focusing on a narrow exception to the liability shield, which allows a lawsuit to go forward if a company has “knowingly violated” a gun law and if that violation was a cause of the harm alleged in a lawsuit.
Mexico’s lawsuit cannot meet those requirements, the companies say, as its arguments for liability rely on linking a long chain of independent third parties, including the gun dealers and traffickers, to the defendants.
A federal judge had ruled for the manufacturers, but the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the case last year, saying the liability shield did not extend to Mexico’s specific claims.
