The Supreme Court sided with the firearms industry in ruling that Mexico’s novel lawsuit didn’t plausibly allege that gun companies had aided and abetted unlawful sales routing guns to Mexican drug cartels.
“In asserting that the manufacturers intentionally supply guns to bad-apple dealers, Mexico never confronts that the manufacturers do not directly supply any dealers, bad-apple or otherwise,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for a unanimous court.
Mexico had sued seven U.S. firearm manufacturers and a distributor for allegedly aiding and abetting illegal sales, arguing that the companies intentionally facilitated unlawful trafficking of their firearms across the southern border, supplying a demand by Mexican drug cartels that seek out American-made military-style weapons.
But the companies argued that Mexico’s legal theory was too far-fetched. “Indeed, if Mexico is right, then every law enforcement organization in America has missed the largest criminal conspiracy in history operating right under their nose, and Budweiser is liable for every accident caused by underage drinkers since it knows that teenagers will buy beer, drive drunk, and crash,” argued Noel Francisco, a former solicitor general under Donald Trump, to the justices on behalf of the industry in March.
“The First Circuit gravely erred in embracing that implausible theory and should be reversed,” Francisco added, referring to the federal appeals court that greenlit Mexico’s lawsuit to move forward last year. The appellate panel noted that the “increase in gun violence in Mexico correlates with the increase of gun production in the United States, beginning with the end of the United States’ assault-weapon ban in 2004.” Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in Donald Trump’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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