Buckeye Institute asks SCOTUS to stop Mexico's suit against firearms industry

An Ohio-based organization again is getting involved in the firearms industry's legal battle against Mexico.

Buckeye Institute, a think tank whose mission is "to advance free-market public policy," on Dec. 3 filed its second amicus brief in Smith & Wesson v. Mexico, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Mexico from shifting blame onto American firearms manufacturers for its own failure to control drug crime there. Its first brief was filed in May.

Mexico in 2021 sued several firearms manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson, alleging they have further inflamed the country's drug war. The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts dismissed the case, but the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturned the district court and sided with Mexico.

“The production and sale of firearms in the United States is not the cause of drug crime and violence in Mexico,” David C. Tryon, director of litigation at the Buckeye Institute, is quoted in a Dec. 3 news release. “And this attempt by Mexico to blame American companies for its failure to control crime is exactly the type of thing Congress sought to protect against when it passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).”

The brief — one of many filed in the case known officially as Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos — was submitted in cooperation with Mountain States Legal Foundation's Center to Keep and Bear Arms and argues that the First Circuit erred when it overturned the district court's dismissal of the case.

The summary of argument in the brief points out that when Congress passed the PLCAA in 2005, it did so with the intention that PLCAA protect the Second Amendment, in part, "by prohibiting anti-firearm lawsuits against the firearms industry."

"Cases — like this one — against the firearms industry threaten what Congress sought to protect. These cases — which assert liability based on the criminal actions of third parties — undermine the Second Amendment," the brief filed with SCOTUS states. "Here, the government of Mexico brought suit against the industry, relying on falsehoods about firearms and using misleading statistics. The First Circuit — incorrectly — reversed the district court and allowed the suit to continue. The Court should reverse the First Circuit’s decision to allow a foreign government to undermine the rights of law-abiding Americans."

Tryon continued in the Buckeye Institute release, “This case offers the U.S. Supreme Court the opportunity to reverse the First Circuit’s decision and stop foreign governments from undermining the rights of law-abiding Americans.”