Supreme Court Rejects Mexico's Lawsuit Against Smith & Wesson
Supreme Court Rejects Mexico's Lawsuit Against Smith & Wesson
Syllabus
Syllabus
Syllabus
KAGAN, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. THOMAS, J.,
and JACKSON, J., filed concurring opinions.
Cite as: 605 U. S. ____ (2025) 1
No. 23–1141
_________________
——————
4 As noted above, Mexico’s suit names one distributor as a defendant.
See supra, at 3, n. 1. But the complaint says virtually nothing about that
company, and nothing at all about its choice of dealers.
12 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS
MEXICANOS
Opinion of the Court
——————
5 At one point, Mexico’s complaint cites a Washington Post article from
2010 naming “12 dealers that sold the most guns recovered” at crime
scenes in Mexico. App. to Pet. for Cert. 44a; see Tr. of Oral Arg. 62. But
the article itself explains that those dealers could have made the list be-
cause of “sales volume [or] geography” rather than especial wrongdoing.
J. Grimaldi & S. Horwitz, Mexican Cartels Wielding American Weapons,
Washington Post, Dec. 13, 2010, p. A10, col. 1.
Cite as: 605 U. S. ____ (2025) 13
No. 23–1141
_________________
No. 23–1141
_________________
10. Nor does it identify the dealers who would be the prin-
cipals for any underlying statutory violations, as the Court
observes. Id., at 12. At bottom, then, Mexico merely faults
the industry writ large for engaging in practices that legis-
latures and voters have declined to prohibit. Id., at 13–14.
It is for these reasons that I view Mexico’s allegations as
insufficient to satisfy PLCAA’s predicate exception, regard-
less of whether the business practices described might suf-
fice to establish aiding-and-abetting or other forms of vicar-
ious liability in distinct statutory or common-law contexts.
Cf. Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, 598 U. S. 471, 507 (2023)
(JACKSON, J., concurring). Devoid of nonconclusory allega-
tions about particular statutory violations, Mexico’s lawsuit
seeks to turn the courts into common-law regulators. But
Congress passed PLCAA to preserve the primacy of the po-
litical branches—both state and federal—in deciding which
duties to impose on the firearms industry. Construing
PLCAA’s predicate exception to authorize lawsuits like the
one Mexico filed here would distort that basic design.