United States – On Thursday, firearm makers sued the United States Supreme Court to allow them to proceed with their challenge of Mexico’s ten-billion-dollar lawsuit intending to make them responsible for letting weapons cross the U.S.-Mexico border into the hands of drug cartels.
Lawsuit Over Responsibility
The eight companies, including Smith& Wesson brands (SWBI.O) and Sturm& Ruger& Co (RGR.N), in the petition, argued that the lower court wrongly ruled the case to belong to an exception to the US law providing the firearms industry broad Protection from being sued, as reported by Reuters.
A trial magistrate had rejected the case on the pretext of law, the Protection at the Legal Trade in Arms Act. Nevertheless, the Federal Appeals Court in Boston ruled in favor of Mexico, finding that the exception to the shield properly addressed their claims.
The 1st Circuit came to this conclusion after finding that the allegation that business practices of the seven-gun makers and one distributor supplied illegal guns to Mexico, therefore even aided and abetted the violation, were factually unsupported.
Specifically, the companies on Thursday said the 1st Circuit acted beyond the scope of and deviated from past high court precedents, as thus, the case should never have reached this point.
“Mexico’s suit has no business in an American court,” their lawyers wrote.
Industry’s Defense
The companies asserted that, without the US Supreme Court’s interference, the US firearms industry would be saddled with years of expensive litigation of this sort by a “foreign sovereign that is trying to bully the industry into adopting a host of gun-control measures that American voters have repeatedly rejected.”
Alejandro Celorio, an adviser in Mexico’s foreign ministry, reported via the social media channel X that the country would “follow up on this request and will be ready in case the Supreme Court decides to admit the matter for study.”
Mexico’s Allegations
In stating its lawsuit to court in 2021, Mexico stated that the companies undermined the strict laws of the country by designing, marketing, and distributing such military-styled assault weapons that they realized the companies that they knew would be used by drug cartels as they fuel murder, extortion, and kidnapping.
Mexico indicates that there are about half a million guns from the United States trafficked to Mexico, and more than 68% are produced by the companies in the lawsuit, as reported by Reuters.
Mexico stated that it undermines the security of the nation through gun-related homicides with declining investments and economic activities, resulting in its need to increase the spending on law enforcement and public safety.