Mexico–United States relations , Gun law in the United States The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously blocks a 10-billion dollar lawsuit by the Mexican government against...

Mexico’s government had argued that negligent gun sales have fuelled its struggles against cartels and criminal groups.

The United States Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit from the government of Mexico that argued American gun manufacturers like Smith & Wesson failed to prevent illegal firearm sales to cartels and criminal organisations.

In one of a slew of decisions handed down on Thursday, the top court decided that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act shielded the gun manufacturers from Mexico’s suit.

Writing for the nine-member bench, Justice Elena Kagan explained that even “indifference” to the trafficking of firearms does not amount to willfully assisting a criminal enterprise.

“Mexico’s complaint does not plausibly allege that the defendant manufacturers aided and abetted gun dealers’ unlawful sales of firearms to Mexican traffickers,” Kagan wrote (PDF).

“We have little doubt that, as the complaint asserts, some such sales take place — and that the manufacturers know they do.

But still, Mexico has not adequately pleaded what it needs to: that the manufacturers ‘participate in’ those sales.”.

The Mexican government’s complaint, she added, “does not pinpoint, as most aiding-and-abetting claims do, any specific criminal transactions that the defendants (allegedly) assisted”.

The case stems from a complaint filed in August 2021 in a federal court in Boston, Massachusetts.

In that initial complaint, the Mexican government — then led by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador — argued that the sheer volume of firearms illegally smuggled into its country amounted to negligence on the part of gun manufacturers.

Those firearms, it said, had exacted a devastating toll on Mexican society.

The country has some of the highest homicide rates in the world, with the United Nations estimating in 2023 that nearly 25 intentional killings happen for every 100,000 people.

Much of that crime has been credited to the presence of cartels and other criminal enterprises operating in Mexico.

The Igarape Institute, a Brazil-based think tank, estimated that Mexico’s crime cost the country nearly 1.92 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) from 2010 to 2014.

The political importance lies in whether the issue moves from public comment into formal action, party response, court record, election authority notice or administrative decision.

For public institutions and political groups, the next test is whether the issue remains a public argument or turns into a formal response, legal proceeding, administrative instruction or election-related communication.