U.S. Supreme Court appears likely to block Mexican lawsuit against gun manufacturers

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case from Mexico against U.S. gun manufacturers including Smith & Wesson and Beretta.

Mexico alleges more than 70% of the guns used by cartels come from the U.S., and that gun makers owe them $10 billion in damages.

The lawyer representing Mexico, Catherine Stetson, told justices that gunmakers knowingly sell weapons that will be used by cartels.

“Petitioners deliberately supplied the illegal Mexican market by selling guns through the small number of dealers that they know sell a large number of crime guns and who repeatedly sell in bulk to the cartel traffickers,” Stetson told the court.

Both liberal and conservative justices appeared skeptical of Mexico’s claim. Gun manufacturers are generally shielded by a broad legal protection passed by Congress in 2005, meaning Mexico has to clear a high legal bar, said Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.

“You saw a healthy amount of doubt that Mexico had done enough to allege a sufficiently direct connection between the gun manufacturers and these downstream illegal sales to straw purchasers,” Willinger said.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said that Mexico would expand its lawsuits against U.S. gun manufacturers if President Donald Trump’s administration designated cartels as terrorist organizations. That designation went into effect last month.

Mexico has another lawsuit against Arizona gun stores still in U.S. courts.