(MEXICO CITY) — There is only one gun store in the entire country of Mexico, yet America’s southern neighbor is awash in violent crimes perpetrated with millions of firearms made in the United States.
In a historic case on Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether American gun manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson, Glock, Beretta and Colt, can be held liable for allegedly “aiding and abetting” the illicit flow of weapons across the border.
The high court has never before taken up the issue of the sweeping gunmaker immunity found in a 2005 federal law aimed at protecting the industry. Its decision could have a significant impact on firearm companies and the victims of gun violence pursuing accountability.
The government of Mexico is seeking $10 billion in damages and court-mandated safety mechanisms and sales restrictions for U.S.-made guns. The justices will decide whether the case can move forward under an exception in the law.
“Between 70-90% of the crime guns in Mexico are illegally trafficked from the U.S.,” said Jonathan Lowy, an attorney representing the Mexican government. “Essentially, Mexico’s gun problem and the problem of armed cartel violence is almost entirely a result of this crime — a gun pipeline from the U.S. gun manufacturers ultimately to the cartels.”
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 broadly bars lawsuits against any gun manufacturer over the illegal acts of a person using one of a manufacturer’s guns. But it does create an exception for claims involving a gun company’s alleged violation of rules governing the sale and marketing of firearms.
Mexico alleges the manufacturers have for years knowingly marketed and distributed their weapons to border community dealers who participate in illegal gun trafficking into Mexico.
“The law is clear that any person or company can be responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their actions and, in this case, of their deliberate actions,” Lowy said.
The gun companies, which declined ABC News’ request for an interview, said in court documents that the exception does not apply and the case should be dismissed, in part, because the alleged link to crimes in Mexico is too diffuse and far removed.
“Mexico’s alleged injuries all stem from the unlawful acts of foreign criminals,” the gun companies argued in their Supreme Court brief.
The court has “repeatedly held that it requires a direct connection between a defendant’s conduct and the plaintiff’s injury,” the companies claimed. “Thus, the general rule is that a company that makes or sells a lawful product is not a proximate cause of harms resulting from the independent criminal misuse of that product.”
More than 160,000 people in Mexico were killed by guns between 2015 and 2022, according to an analysis by Everytown for Gun Safety.
A large majority of guns involved in the shootings came from U.S. border states. More than 40% of illegal guns seized in Mexico over a five-year period came from Texas, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
In 2023 alone, more than 2,600 firearms were seized going south into Mexico, up 65% from the year before, according to the Department of Homeland Security, and 115,000 rounds of ammunition were captured headed the same direction, up 19% from 2022.
“In its zeal to attack the firearms industry, Mexico seeks to raze bedrock principles of American law that safeguard the whole economy,” the companies wrote in their brief. “It is the criminal who is responsible for his actions, not the company that made or sold the product.”
A federal district court dismissed Mexico’s case in 2022 citing the PLCAA protections. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in early 2024, saying Mexico had made a plausible case for liability under the law’s exception.
The Supreme Court will decide whether to affirm that judgment and allow the case to continue toward what would be a first-of-its-kind trial.
Mexico, in the meantime, announced it will expand its lawsuit after the Trump administration designated six Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
“You will also see an expansion of this lawsuit for the complicity of those who sell weapons, which are [then] introduced into our country,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters last month.
In essence, Mexico will argue that American gun manufacturers aren’t just enabling ordinary gun crime but terrorism, by the U.S. government’s own characterization.
The Supreme Court is expected to deliver an opinion in the case, Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, by the end of June.
ABC News’ Matt Rivers and Patty See contributed to this report.
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