27 States Urge Supreme Court to Review Mexico’s Case Against US Gunmakers

A group of 27 Republican attorneys general is calling on the Supreme Court to review a $10 billion lawsuit filed by the Mexican government, which seeks to hold U.S. gun manufacturers responsible for the large number of firearms being trafficked across the southern border.

In a filing with the nation’s highest court on Tuesday, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, along with 25 of his GOP colleagues, asked the court to hear the case to prevent what they described as a foreign sovereign from “hauling the American firearms industry into court seeking redress for purely extra-territorial harms caused by third-party criminal conduct.”

The speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and president of the Arizona Senate also joined in filing the amicus brief, which argues that anti-gun activists are using the judiciary to attempt to “crush the firearms industry” and take guns away from Americans, in violation of their Second Amendment rights.

In this specific case, the attorneys general argued that “anti-gun activists” are using “legal theories” to find ways to prevent gun purchases and exploit the narrow exceptions in the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which was enacted by Congress in 2005.

Under that act, lawsuits against gun manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition, are prohibited in U.S. federal and state courts when they seek relief or damages resulting from the misuse of their products by others.

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