Score another victory for the good guys. The Supreme Court has put a stop to the Mexican government’s effort to blame US gun manufacturers for drug cartel violence.
But this ruling is even bigger than that.
The Supreme Court essentially prevented an insidious anti-gunner plan to allow lawsuits against gun manufacturers when violent criminals use their products to commit crimes. Mexico’s legal action represented one of the most pernicious threats to the Second Amendment in recent memory.
Mexico’s government filed suit in August 2021 against popular firearm companies, including Smith & Wesson, Glock, and Century International Arms, among others. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the lawsuit is prohibited under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which protects gun companies from legal action if their products are used in crimes.
The Mexican government alleged that the companies aided and abetted illegal gun sales that armed drug cartels and fueled violent crime in Mexico. But the court ruled that their accusations did not meet the legal threshold required to subvert PLCAA’s immunity provisions.
“The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) bars certain lawsuits against manufacturers and sellers of firearms,” the ruling noted. The court further explained that “[t]he predicate exception applies to lawsuits in which the defendant manufacturer or seller ‘knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing’ of firearms.”
The Supreme Court further insisted that the lawsuit “does not plausibly allege that the defendant manufacturer’s aided and abetted gun dealers’ unlawful sales of firearms” and that “[t]o aid and abet a crime, a person must take an affirmative act in furtherance of the offense and intend to facilitate its commission.”
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The justices pointed out that “An ordinary merchant does not become liable for criminal misuse of her goods simply by knowing that, in some fraction of cases, misuse will occur” and “The merchant becomes liable only if, beyond providing the good on the open market, he takes steps to ‘promote’ the resulting crime and ‘make it his own.’”
Surprisingly, it was Justice Elene Kagan who wrote the opinion, and she sounded more like the NRA than Everytown for Gun Safety. Ketanji Brown Jackson also noted that “Mexico merely faults the industry writ large for engaging in practices that legislatures and voters have declined to prohibit.”
It was already ridiculous enough that Mexico would try to hold American companies accountable for problems that it has failed to solve. But what was even worse is that Democratic officials did their level best to support this foreign government’s assault on our Second Amendment rights.
Democratic attorneys general from 14 states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, California, and the District of Columbia— publicly backed the lawsuit.
They even went so far as to file an amicus brief in federal court in 2022 opposing the gun companies’ motion to dismiss the case. They insisted that the PLCAA does not shield companies from liability if they contributed to violence in other nations. They literally sided with a foreign government to make it harder for Americans to keep and bear arms.
If Mexico’s ridiculous legal action had succeeded, it would have opened the floodgates for litigation against gun manufacturers. In some cases, the inevitable barrage of lawsuits could have threatened to shut down at least some of these companies.
Those who survived would likely have been forced to raise the prices on their firearms to contend with the litigation, which means consumers would have to pay more to purchase guns. Anti-gunners have often tried to curtail gun ownership by making it cost-prohibitive.
Who would this have affected? Lower-income Americans — especially Black and Hispanic people. As much as these hypocrites claim to care about “marginalized” groups, they sure are hellbent on making it harder for us to defend ourselves.
This ruling was not only the right call, but a devastating blow to the anti-gunner movement in America. Democrats have been trying to subvert the PLCAA so they can wage lawfare against gun manufacturers, and this ruling places yet another obstacle in front of them.
So, you will have to excuse me if I take the opportunity to gloat. These people deserve every bit of mockery and scorn we can muster.
Editor's Note: The Supreme Court has just protected the Second Amendment rights of every American by shutting down gun control lawfare from foreign countries. Mexico can get lost.
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