It’s hard to imagine a more challenging political headwind than Mexico’s case against American gun companies. Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos.
In short, the Mexican state sued seven U.S. gun manufacturers, as well as a company that distributes guns, claiming that the companies intentionally (and illegally) provided guns to drug cartels in that country that triggered violence The popularity. According to a federal appeals court who has heard of the case before: “The defendants produced more than 68% of American guns that trafficked in Mexico. 342,000 to 597,000 shots per year. ”
Mexico has proposed a reasonable case where these companies profited from these weapons, allegedly causing Thousands of deaths in Mexico each year. However, there are three reasons to suspect that Mexico has any prevalence in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The first is the 2005 federal law called Law on the Protection of Legal Commercial Weapons (“PLCAA”), which provides unusual immunity to gun manufacturers and sellers. The law is intended to prevent litigation against gun manufacturers, “because the only harm caused by criminal or illegal abuse of gun products or ammunition products when the product operates as designed and intended.” Of course, the gun is designed and intended to be used as a deadly weapon. .
That said, the PLCAA does include some exceptions to this general rule, including exceptions to aid and teach ain gun manufacturers that violate state or federal laws. But this is the second reason Mexico faces a tough climb: the latest precedent for the court is when someone has a responsibility to assist and teach things is rather vague, and it contains language that favors both parties’ positions in this case . This means the justices may read the case to benefit any party they want to win.
This makes us the third reason Mexico is unlikely to have the upper hand: the politics of this situation is simply too bad. The Supreme Court has 6-3 Republicans’ super contributions, and those Republicans have stumbled themselves to rule to support the pro-gun cause – even written a complete New interpretation of the Second Amendment To make the law more beneficial to guns.
Although there are reasonable legal arguments to support both parties in this case, Smith and Wesson The Republican Supreme Court is required to choose between a ruling that favors gun manufacturers and a ruling that favors Mexicans. If you are a gambler, it can be easy to determine which party you should choose.
Of course, it is still possible that most judges are comparable to Mexico here. But, in fact, Mexico faces an uphill battle in the Supreme Court, which shows a lot of attention to the gun industry – even without the federal regulations that protect gun companies from liability.
What is a legal issue Smith and Wesson?
Mexico sued various American gun companies, including Smith & Wesson, Glock, Colt and Beretta. And their Fact accusations Mexico essentially believes that these companies are somewhat complicated, and these companies know that their guns are distributed to dealers who sell them to cartels, usually indirectly sold to cartels through “straw” buyers, and these purchases are The person will buy the gun and then sell it or transfer it to the cartel members.
According to the Mexico summary, the defendant “received frequent alerts from alcohol, tobacco, guns and explosives (ATFs), indicating that’The guns they sell to specific distributors and dealers are being recovered in Mexico’s crime sceneMexico claims that despite these warnings, gun companies are still doing business with these distributors or dealers.
Typically, the PLCAA prohibits lawsuits arising from “criminal or illegal abuse” of guns by “third parties” – meaning that gun manufacturers cannot be prosecuted if someone uses their products to commit crimes. But the law includes gun manufacturersDeliberate violation of state or federal regulations Applicable to the sale or sale of products, violations are the near-hazardous cause of the harm of seeking relief. ”
So which regulations of gun manufacturers are allegedly violated? As the Court of Appeal explained, “Mexico’s grounds are intentionally promoting illegal trafficking of firearms to Mexico Aid and teaching AIN violates various federal regulations This prohibits the sale of guns without permission, export of guns without licenses, and sells them to straw buyers. ”
Therefore, this situation is complicated and involves a large number of maze legal languages. The most important thing to understand is that the case will likely open up the meaning of “Aid and Teach a” in violation of federal licenses or anti-history buyer laws. Both Mexico and the defendant interpreted this sentence in different ways.
The answer to this question may depend on Twitter v Taamneh (2023), a recent unanimous decision, discusses what one person’s assistance and teaching the other person’s illegal actions mean.
So what does “assistance and teaching a” mean?
twitter Related to a federal law that allows any American person harmed by an act of international terrorism to prosecute any “AIDS and teaching a, by intentionally providing a lot of assistanceFor anyone who commits such acts of international terrorism. ”
Plaintiffs are U.S. relatives who died in the ISIS terrorist attack, claiming that major social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube help and teach the attacks because they sometimes host recruitment videos posted by ISIS.
most twitter Opinions favor gun manufacturers’ positions. In ruling for social media companies, all nine justices were concerned about creating a world that could be prosecuted for any remote consequences of their products. As Judge Clarence Thomas wrote for the court, “If the responsibility for taking responsibility is too far, then Ordinary businessmen may be liable for misuse of their goods and servicesno matter how their relationship with the law is weakened. ”
Meanwhile, gun manufacturers are Smith and Wesson The case is much closer to gun dealers than Twitter or Facebook vs. terrorist groups. And in twitter The decision was vague.
Specifically, the court announced that in order to help and teach to the violation, the defendant must “provide awareness and a lot of help to those who actually enforce the bill. Thomas added that a weaker proof that the defendant knew what happened might be Overcome with greater aid performance and vice versa.
Smith and Wesson Arrived at the court at the early stages of the lawsuit; no trial court examined the factual allegations of Mexico. Therefore, the Justice was asked to treat all the charges in Mexico as true. Therefore, it may be inappropriate for the court to dismiss the case now. It is worth noting that the Court of Appeal heard the case and confirmed Mexican suits can move forward twitter.
but twitter It also provides a justice that hopes to rule the gun companies, and they can justify their preferred outcome with many reasons.
The gun company also makes another more dangerous argument
In addition to striving for the correct way to read the decision twitterMexico and gun companies also disagree with the appropriate meaning of legal terms called “proximal cause.” Recall that if these companies intend to violate the law, the PLCAA allows litigation against gun companies to move forward, and such violations “a direct cause of the harm of seeking relief.”
Proximal reasons are basic legal concepts that law students usually learn in the first year of infringement classes. It refers to an act that not only causes someone to be hurt, but also what the law believes Legally enough to prove that the actors are held accountable To harm this. Basically, it can help the court decide who is responsible for certain injuries (who is not).
Think of it this way: Suppose Jack hits a person with a car while driving home, breaking one of the ribs in the process. It can be argued that any number of actions “caused” the accident, including the automaker’s decision to build the car and the auto dealer’s decision to sell it to Jack. But we don’t usually consider these remote causes as a good foundation for litigation. There is no evidence that the dealer or manufacturer is performing improperly or negligently, and the law will hold Jack responsible for his negligent driving.
While the concept of proximal cause may be slippery, the general rule proposed in a paper mentioned in the Mexican profile is that the defendant can be held responsible for reasonable harm”Foreseeable“The result of their illegal actions. Indeed, twitter The opinion appears to accept this view, noting that “persons who aid and teach torts may be liable for other torts that are “foreseeable risks”.”
Therefore, for example, although generally, a car dealer usually does not assume any responsibility for selling a car to those who are accidents in the car forwarding of the person using his new car. In this case, the dealer should reasonably foresee that selling the car to Jack would result in another person’s injury.
However, the gun company proposed a Fundamentally reimagine the concept of “proximal cause” In their profile. They claim that when a series of events lead to adverse outcomes, the legal cause of that outcome is often “limited to the ‘first step’ in the causal relationship. They argue that when the chain of events involves “single actions performed by separate parties”, This is especially true, that is, when multiple independent actions of multiple individuals lead to adverse outcomes.
Therefore, according to the proposed rules of the gun company, if the gun manufacturer sells the gun to a distributor, the latter sells it to a distributor, the latter sells it to a straw buyer, the latter sells it to a cartel member, and uses It comes to kill it Mexican police, and it is likely that only cartel members will be held responsible for this death.
But the problem with the rules raised by gun companies is that limiting liability to only one actor in the causal chain will lead to ridiculous results.
Suppose Jack deliberately left that neighbor’s front door open after visiting him, and even posted a sign, “Hey, thief! There’s a lot behind this completely unlocked door that you can steal.” According to the Gun Company’s theory, If the theft accepts Jack’s invitation, even without Jack’s malicious actions, theft will never occur and no responsibility will be held to Jack.
In any case, it can sometimes be difficult to apply to the concept of individual cases. The court sometimes strives to determine whether a particular defendant should reasonably foresee another person’s illegal conduct. But the proposed rules for gun companies are too simple, even if they fully know that someone will use their products to do something horrible, it can make many companies evade responsibility.
Given the Supreme Court’s Republican super contribution, these justices may find some kind of ruling to support gun companies Smith and Wesson. But if this happens, we should expect them to do so in a way that does not lead to absurd outcome of absurd future case.
