The Supreme Court unanimously rejected on Thursday the Mexican government’s lawsuit against American gun manufacturers.
The court held that Mexico’s 2021 lawsuit against seven U.S. gun manufacturers is barred under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
“As required by a federal statute, Mexico seeks to show (among other things) that the defendant companies participated in the unlawful sale or marketing of firearms,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the court’s opinion. “More specifically, Mexico alleges that the companies aided and abetted unlawful sales routing guns to Mexican drug cartels. The question presented is whether Mexico’s complaint plausibly pleads that conduct. We conclude it does not.”
Congress passed the PLCAA in 2005 to shield gun makers from civil lawsuits based on the misuse of their firearms. Mexico claimed its lawsuit fell into an exception in the law that applies where manufacturers “knowingly violated” statutes related to selling or marketing firearms.
“But that exception, if Mexico’s suit fell within it, would swallow most of the rule,” Kagan wrote. “We doubt Congress intended to draft such a capacious way out of PLCAA, and in fact it did not.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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