The Mexican state has filed a lawsuit against several major US gun manufacturers; Smith & Wesson Brandsv. Estados Unidos Mexiconoswas cursed long before he arrived at the Supreme Court.
Tuesday's oral debate in the incident only confirmed it. At least seven, and perhaps all nine, of the judiciaries, appear to reject Mexican arguments that gun companies are responsible for crimes committed on products across the US-Mexico border.
Mexico sued seven gun companies and companies distributing firearms, claiming that these companies were intentionally and illegally supplying guns to drug cartels. According to the federal court of appeals, the defendant in this case is produced by the defendant, who says, “more than 68% of US guns are trafficked to Mexico and appear in 342,000 to 597,000 guns each year.” ”
The appeals court ruled that the lawsuit could move forward, at least for now, but it appeared that the Mexican lawsuit hit a wall during discussions Tuesday. All the Republicans in the court, Biden and appointed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, sounded very skeptical of Mexico's claims, asking questions that suggest that all nine judges might not buy Mexican legal theory.
One reason why this lawsuit is cursed is the federal law of 2005, known as the protection of the Weapons Act (“PLCAA”) that gives gun control an extraordinary level of immunity from lawsuits. Under the PLCAA, gun manufacturers are “immunized from most lawsuits for harm caused only by crimes or illegal misuse of firearms or ammunition products by others, if they are functioning as designed and intended.
The PLCAA “permissions a gun company to be sued if they knowingly violated state or federal laws applicable to the sale or marketing of a product, and the violation was a proximity to the harm that was sought for relief.” in Smith & Wessonclaims that Mexico supported and bet in violation of federal law by deliberately distributing guns to traffickers who provide guns to drug cartels.
If a few seem to be buying that argument, they seemed pretty certain how gun companies would control the immunity from this lawsuit. However, it was clear that Mexico was unlikely to win the lawsuit. The unresolved question is how justice reaches its outcome.
Many ways Mexico can lose this incident were explained briefly.
The PLCAA core provision prohibits lawsuits resulting from “crime or illegal misuse” of guns by “third parties,” so if someone commits a crime using a product, it cuts off most lawsuits against gun companies. The law contains exceptions, but only if the gun company “willfully violates state or federal law” or the violation was “a proximity cause of harm in which relief is sought.” (This explains what “proximity causes” are below.)
Soon, Judge Clarence Thomas even questioned whether Mexico had identified a law that allegedly infringed by a gun company. Judge Neil Gorsuch suggested that Mexico must prove that it intends to violate certain laws, but he pointed to two federal laws banning the sale of guns that could have been violated by these traffickers.
However, Mexico does not actually claim that a gun company that is licensed to sell its core products sold guns directly without a license. Instead, by deliberately distributing the product to these traffickers, gun companies claim to support and bet in legal violations.
The court's case governing when someone can be liable to assist or be responsible for supporting another person's misconduct is vague, and the court's latest cases that take this question into consideration include several prominent languages that violate Mexican legal theory.
in Twitterv. Taamneh (2023), the unanimous Supreme Court rejected the idea that social media companies could be responsible for supporting and beating terrorist attacks simply because some terrorist groups could use the platform for recruitment. The lawsuit warned that “if the liability for assistance and absorption goes too far, ordinary merchants could be liable for misuse of goods or services, no matter how attenuated their relationship with the fraudster.”
Judge Brett Kavanaugh seemed to latch on this concern as a valid reason for controlling Mexico. He pointed out that many products can be used to commit crimes, from knives to baseball bats to prescription drugs. He was concerned that under Mexican legal theory, baseball bat makers could be liable to assist and be responsible for assaulting if they sold their products in areas where attacks with baseball bats are statistically higher than in other regions.
Meanwhile, Jackson has argued that it allows lawsuits that argue that statutory violations will move forward, but that it is not a case rooted in the “common law,” the legal body of judges that often control personal injury cases. Congress attempted to cut off common law cases when it enacted the PLCAA because it feared that judges applying common law rules might replace Congressional powers and decide when gun manufacturers should be held liable.
The reason why this distinction, at least for Jackson, is important is that the concept of cooperation and behaviour arises from customary law.
Judge Samuel Alito has taken a completely different approach at some point, claiming that many Americans believe Mexico is hurting Americans.
In any case, since the courts did not coalesce around a single theory, it is difficult to predict how the judiciary will ultimately determine its control over Mexico. However, it seems safe to say that Mexico is likely to lose this incident.
Justice seemed to have rejected the most destructive arguments of gun companies
All of this has been one argument that gun companies seem to appear to have steadfastly rejected some justice early in the debate.
Remember that the PLCAA not only deliberately violates the law, but also calls on Mexico to show that this violation is a “proximity cause of harm that is being sought for relief.” Approximate causes are fundamental legal concepts, when someone can be legally responsible for injuring another person.
Let's say Dennis hit someone in the car while he was home and broke his arm. It can be said that this accident was caused by the car manufacturer's decision to manufacture cars, the car dealership to sell it to Dennis, the iron company's decision to refine the steel used to make cars, and the mining company's decision to mine the iron used to make this steel. But without unusual circumstances, the law simply places Dennis liability for her own negligent driving, rather than literally placing liability on the person who literally made it possible for this accident to happen.
While the concept of proximity causes can be slippery, the general rule is that the accused can be held liable for injuries, which is a reasonably foreseeable outcome of illegal activities.
However, gun companies spend much of the short one discussing another definition of “close cause.” Under their suggestions, if a series of events leads to bad outcomes, the legal cause of the consequences is generally “confined to the “first step” of the causal chain.” This is especially true, they say when the series of events involves “separate actions carried out by separate parties,” that is, when multiple independent actions by multiple people lead to bad outcomes.
Therefore, if gun companies were to sell hundreds of firearms to the International Brotherhood of Hitman and contract murder, and to use these guns to kill innocent people, the gun companies still couldn't be legally liable.
In any case, no judicial person would purchase a redefinement of the cause of this proximity. And some of them, including Judge John Roberts, Judge Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Connie Barrett, appeared highly doubtful about this legal argument.
It's a small silver lining for anyone hoping that gun manufacturers will one day face legal consequences for the harm caused by their products. But the overall driving force of Tuesday's debate still suggests that gun companies are likely to win the incident.
