The legal team representing Mexico in a lawsuit against eight firearms manufacturers in the United States is preparing to argue part of their case before the US Supreme Court on March 4, according to Pablo Arrocha, legal consultant for the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“This case is going through a stage where questions of admissibility will still be reviewed, not of substance,” Arrocha clarified on Tuesday at the International Forum on Arms Trafficking and Diversion in Latin America organized by the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE).
The Mexican government sued several US arms manufacturers in 2021, accusing them of providing weapons that ultimately reach drug cartels operating in the country and demanding compensation for economic and social damages resulting from armed violence.
Mexico, which has only one gun store, has claimed in the past that between 70% and 90% of all guns recovered from Mexican crime scenes come from the US. A 2024 report from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms found that 72% of international gun trafficking cases originating in the US featured Mexico as the target country.
In October 2024, the US Supreme Court granted a request by Smith & Wesson and other companies to review a federal appeals court ruling that revived the case after a lower court judge dismissed it, citing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. This is a law that generally bars civil liability for firearms manufacturers and distributors for the use of their products by criminal third parties.
In court filings, the manufacturers have challenged Mexico’s allegations that they were aiding and abetting the illegal sale of their weapons in violation of US federal law. They have pointed to the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that shielded Twitter from a lawsuit alleging it aided and abetted terrorism by hosting tweets from the terrorist group ISIS.
“In its zeal to attack the firearms industry, Mexico seeks to raze bedrock principles of American law that safeguard the whole economy,” the manufacturers wrote in a November 2024 brief.
A second lawsuit, filed by Mexico in October 2022 in an Arizona court against five stores that sell guns, is in the evidence-gathering stage, according to Arrocha. Mexico accuses them of negligence, public nuisance and unjust enrichment.
According to the ATF, the Arizona to Mexico gun trafficking pipeline is second only to the illicit firearms trade between Texas and Mexico.
The legal advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that both lawsuits are moving forward and that there are scenarios for any type of outcome.
“This is the beginning, and this is the tip of the spear of something that can allow for much broader litigation strategies in the future,” he said at the forum.
The case comes to the Supreme Court at a moment of diplomatic tension between Mexico and the US. Last week, the US officially designated six Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups, an act that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum characterized as potentially endangering Mexican sovereignty.
At the same press conference, Sheinbaum declared that she would seek reforms to prosecute “any national or foreigner involved in the illicit manufacture, distribution, disposal, transfer and internment of weapons into [Mexico’s] national territory.”
