A federal judge dismissed the Mexican suit in 2022 for violating federal law but six months ago an appeals court reinstated it.
Mexico urged the U.S. Supreme Court this week to let its $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers for allegedly flooding that country with firearms proceed in the lower courts.
Although some gun control activists welcome Mexico’s lawsuit, gun rights advocates say the legal action by a foreign government is exploiting U.S. laws in an effort to cripple the U.S. firearms industry and weaken the Second Amendment protections Americans enjoy.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit allowed the case to move forward after it was dismissed by a federal district court.
The new filing by Mexico on July 3 comes after lead petitioner Smith and Wesson filed a petition with the Supreme Court on April 18 seeking to overturn the First Circuit ruling. Among the co-petitioners are Beretta U.S.A. Corp., Glock Inc., and Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc.
In its brief, Mexico argues the First Circuit ruled correctly and that it should be allowed to move forward with its claim that the petitioners “deliberately chose to engage in unlawful … conduct to profit off the criminal market for their products.”
The circuit court held that Mexico’s complaint made a plausible claim that the petitioners “deliberately aided and abetted the unlawful sale of firearms to purchasers supplying brutal cartels in Mexico” and that that country suffered harm as a result, the brief stated.
The gun makers are wrong to argue that the prospect of them being held “liable for negligence and public nuisance” presents “an existential threat to the gun industry.”
The First Circuit’s decision came after a federal district court threw out the lawsuit on Sept. 30, 2022.
U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in Massachusetts dismissed the lawsuit that claimed U.S. companies were intentionally undermining Mexico’s tough gun laws by making “military-style assault weapons” that find their way to drug cartels and criminals.
