U.S. gun companies are asking the Supreme Court to stop an unusual lawsuit from Mexico that coincides with a critical moment for relations between the two countries. The lawsuit seeks to hold firearms manufacturers accountable for gun violence in Mexico, testing long-standing protections from liability for the firearms industry as President Trump promises to take on Mexican drug cartels and illegal immigration. Trump is adding U.S. troops to the southern border and threatening to impose tariffs on Mexico as soon as Tuesday, the day the lawsuit against the gunmakers will be argued at the high court. Mexico’s drug cartels have obtained most of their guns from the U.S. in what anti-violence activists refer to as an “Iron River” of weapons.
As fentanyl and other narcotics flow north, guns flow south, the Washington Post reports.
Mexico alleges that U.S. firearms makers know their guns are trafficked into Mexico and make design, marketing and distribution choices to grow the profitable but illegal market. A special-edition Colt handgun is known as the Super El Jefe pistol, a term used to refer to cartel bosses, and a Emiliano Zapata 1911 pistol is engraved with the Mexican revolutionary’s pronouncement: “It is better to die standing than to live on your knees. The gun manufacturers — including Smith & Wesson Brands, Beretta USA, Glock, and Colt’s Manufacturing Co. — say the Mexican government is using the litigation to limit Second Amendment gun rights in the U.S., which the Supreme Court has expanded in recent years. They warn of harmful implications for other U.S. companies if the justices allow the foreign government’s case to proceed. “In its zeal to attack the firearms industry, Mexico seeks to raze bedrock principles of American law that safeguard the whole economy,” wrote Noel Francisco, Trump's former solicitor general, who represents the companies.