Supreme Court Will Hear Mexico’s Lawsuit Against US Gun Makers in March

The Supreme Court on Nov. 22 scheduled oral argument for March 4, 2025, in U.S. gun companies’ appeal in Mexico’s ongoing $10 billion lawsuit against the firearms businesses.
In the legal action, Mexico is seeking $10 billion from U.S. gun suppliers for allegedly flooding that country with firearms. Mexico blames the companies for a violent crime wave, saying their actions benefited criminal cartels.
The defendants are gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson and gun wholesaler Interstate Arms.
Mexico argues that illegal gun trafficking into that country is driven largely by Mexican drug cartels’ demands for military-style weapons.
Although some gun control activists welcome Mexico’s lawsuit, gun rights advocates say it constitutes foreign interference in U.S. affairs and is aimed at crippling the U.S. firearms industry and weakening the Second Amendment protections enjoyed by Americans.
The gun companies say the suit is barred by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) of 2005, which was enacted to protect the industry from frivolous lawsuits.
The appeal concerns the Jan. 22 decision of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that let the lawsuit proceed.
Kayatta wrote that a jump in gun violence in Mexico in recent years “correlates” with the boost in gun production in the United States that began when the U.S. assault weapon ban expired in 2004.
The First Circuit returned the case to U.S. District Judge Dennis Saylor of Massachusetts, who had previously dismissed the lawsuit against all eight of the original corporate defendants on Sept. 30, 2022.
Saylor found in 2022 that the PLCAA “unequivocally bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the acts of individuals using guns for their intended purpose.”
“Congress made clear in PLCAA that this sort of lawfare against any law-abiding member of the firearms industry has no business in American courts, and must be promptly dismissed,” Francisco said.
Lawfare is the strategic use of legal proceedings to damage, delegitimize, undermine, or frustrate the efforts of an opponent.
The lawsuit should be allowed to proceed because the companies “deliberately chose to engage in unlawful … conduct to profit off the criminal market for their products,” the brief states.
The gun companies were 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 brief says.
The case is Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos.
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June 2025.