Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum’s lawsuit against American firearms manufacturers is illegal and void, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 9-0 opinion on June 5. Justice Elena Kagan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote the unanimous opinion for the Court.
The origins of the case began in the late 20th century, when the gun-ban lobby Handgun Control, Inc. (which later changed its name to Brady), convinced dozens of anti-Second Amendment big-city mayors to sue American gun manufacturers on the theory that law-abiding companies are to blame for criminal misuse of firearms. While the suits had little substance, the strategy was to bankrupt manufacturers through legal fees. Congress responded in 2005 by enacting the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which prohibits courts from entertaining such abusive cases.
Several years ago, Brady attorney Jonathan Lowy founded his own organization, Global Action on Gun Violence, for the purpose of bringing what became the Mexican lawsuit against Smith & Wesson and other American manufacturers. As required by law, he registered as a foreign agent of the Mexican government.
A federal district court in Massachusetts dismissed Lowy’s case because it obviously violated the PLCAA. But the First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and held that Lowy’s suit on behalf of Mexico fit a PLCAA exception. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously disagreed and held that the Mexican lawsuit must be dismissed.
In the Supreme Court, the NRA and the Independence Institute jointly filed an amicus brief pointing out that the violent-crime problem in Mexico is primarily the fault of the corrupt and repressive Mexican federal government. Although the Mexican Constitution expressly guarantees the right to arms for protection in the home, fewer than 50 gun-possession permits are issued annually.
The U.S. Supreme Court took the case of Smith & Wesson v. Mexico to decide whether Mexico’s case should have been dismissed. A motion to dismiss is filed very early in a case, before either side has presented evidence. In ruling on a motion to dismiss, a court decides whether the plaintiffs have stated a legal claim on which relief could be granted.
At the motion-to-dismiss stage, a court must presume that the plaintiffs will be able to prove all the facts they pleaded in their complaint; however, under Supreme Court precedent, the allegations must be “plausible.” Here, wrote Justice Kagan, none of the relevant Mexico/Lowy allegations were plausible.
While the PLCAA bans most lawsuits against firearms manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, there is an exception if a firearms business “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing” of firearms, such as if a retailer deliberately sold a firearm to a prohibited person.
Mexico could not point to a single law that any of the defendant firearms businesses had violated. Yet, argued Mexico, the businesses were knowingly “aiding and abetting” the illegal distribution of firearms to Mexican cartels.
Not so, according to case precedent quoted by Justice Kagan: “[A]iding and abetting” another crime requires that a person “take an affirmative act” to advance the underlying crime. Here, nothing the American firearms businesses did was an affirmative act to advance the cartels.
American manufacturers sell guns to wholesalers, who in turn sell them to FFL retailers. Mexico alleged that “rogue” retailers knowingly sell guns to purchasers acting on behalf of Mexican cartels. Further, Mexico claimed that the manufacturers know who the rogues are and should cut off sales to them. Yet, as Justice Kagan noted, Mexico failed to “provide grounds for thinking that anyone up the supply chain—whether manufacturer or distributor—often acquires” information about miscreant retailers.
Even if Mexico’s allegation were correct, wrote Justice Kagan, the manufacturers’ decisions would only amount to “indifference.” That’s far short of the “pervasive, systemic, and culpable assistance” that is necessary for an aiding and abetting claim.
Mexico also asserted that manufacturers are liable because they do not forbid the sale of their products at gun shows or from home-based FFL retailers. According to Mexico, sales at such places are more likely to be illegal; however, Justice Kagan wrote: “Such ‘omissions’ and ‘inactions,’ especially in an already highly regulated industry, are rarely the stuff of aiding-and-abetting liability… . A manufacturer of goods is not an accomplice to every unaffiliated retailer whom it fails to make follow the law.”
As for Mexico’s allegations about the manufacturers’ “design and marketing decisions,” they were, in Justice Kagan’s words, “nothing of consequence.” Mexico complained that manufacturers produce “military style” weapons, such as ARs, AKs and .50-caliber rifles. Justice Kagan fired back: “But those products are both widely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers.” Indeed, “The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the country… . The manufacturers cannot be charged with assisting in criminal acts just because Mexican cartel members like those guns too.”
She likewise scoffed at imposing liability on American companies for making “firearms with Spanish-language names or graphics alluding to Mexican history” (such as Colt’s .38 Super “El Grito”). Cartels might like them, but so do “millions of law-abiding Hispanic Americans.”
Lastly, Mexico did not dispute that all American manufacturers follow federal regulatory standards for the minimum depth and typeface of serial numbers on their guns. But Mexico said that manufacturers could go further to reduce the possibility that serial numbers could be defaced; however, wrote Justice Kagan, “the failure to improve gun design in that way (which federal law does not require) cannot in the end show that the manufacturers have ‘join[ed] both mind and hand’ with lawbreakers in the way needed to aid and abet.”
In conclusion, the Mexican suit was exactly the kind of case that the PLCAA was intended to prohibit. If Mexico’s implausible allegations were enough to escape the PLCAA, then “that exception … would swallow most of the rule.”
Although some people who want to delegitimize the rule of law claim that Supreme Court decisions are just politics, the unanimous decision in Smith & Wesson shows the opposite. The Justices had to interpret a statute enacted by Congress and all nine of them adopted a straightforward reading, regardless of their personal views about gun control.
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