A cohort of 27 high Republican prosecutors have filed an amicus transient on the Supreme Courtroom, asking it to take up a case introduced by the Mexican authorities that seeks to carry American gun producers accountable for gun violence by the hands of the cartels.
On Tuesday, Montana Lawyer Normal Austin Knudsen, together with GOP colleagues, requested the courtroom to listen to the case to cease “a international sovereign’s use of American courts to successfully restrict the rights of Americans.”
The case stems from a lawsuit filed in 2021 by the Mexican authorities, alleging U.S. gun producers like Smith & Wesson, Ruger and others ought to be answerable for gun violence carried out by cartels south of the border as a result of the businesses had been conscious their firearms had been being trafficked into the nation.
Mexico’s lawsuit was dismissed by a federal choose in Massachusetts final 12 months, however Mexico efficiently appealed its case to the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the First Circuit, with the assist of California and different Democrat-led states.
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Knudsen, in his petition to the excessive courtroom, says “anti-gun activists” are behind the lawsuit.
“Congress has lengthy taken a measured and thoroughly calibrated method to firearms regulation. It sought to steadiness the general public’s Second Modification rights with the necessity to maintain weapons away from criminals. Anti-gun activists wished extra,” the petition explains.
“In order that they turned to the judiciary. Their admitted purpose: to avoid the political branches by turning the courts into regulators through artistic authorized theories and tenuous chains of causation. Even higher, they knew they didn’t need to win. The mere risk of a bankrupting judgment was adequate and – if it wasn’t – sufficient rolls of the cube would ultimately land them the outlier victory they sought,” it says.
The petition explains that Congress acknowledged the general public’s proper to maintain and bear arms “was all-but-meaningless if firearms producers had been put out of enterprise, and additional acknowledged the significance of the firearms trade to the navy and legislation enforcement.” Thus, the AGs argue, the Safety of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) was enacted in 2005.
The bipartisan PLCAA prohibits “civil legal responsibility actions from being introduced or continued in opposition to producers, distributors, sellers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or different aid ensuing from the misuse of their merchandise by others.”
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“You may assume that may be the top of it,” the AGs wrote. “However the activists are at it once more, making an attempt to cram the identical artistic authorized theories with much more tenuous chains of causation into PLCAA’s slim exceptions, admittedly trying to realize by way of litigation what Congress rejected. Right here, the activists even had Mexico sue American gun producers for crime issues ensuing from Mexico’s coverage decisions.”
Mexico has stated the businesses are “totally conscious that their firearms had been being trafficked into the nation and that the businesses – not a 3rd occasion – knowingly violated legal guidelines relevant to the sale or advertising and marketing of firearms.”
Mexico has additionally stated that greater than 500,000 weapons are trafficked yearly from the U.S. into Mexico, of which greater than 68% are made by the eight firms it sued and that the smuggling has contributed to excessive charges of gun-related deaths, declining funding and financial exercise, and a necessity for Mexico to spend extra on legislation enforcement and public security.
However the AGs stated the Mexican authorities’s personal insurance policies like “hugs not bullets” and failure to crack down on cartels and even the cartels’ infiltration of the nation’s authorities contributes to its excessive crime.
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“Mexico’s proximate causation principle comprises a evident defect. Mexico is a sovereign nation. It controls its personal borders. Mexico might merely shut – certainly, militarize – its border with america if it selected to take action. Probably the closure can be painful, and Mexico has chosen to do in any other case. Certainly, Mexico has flung its border open and sought to extort billions of {dollars} from america to even try and handle the ensuing chaos,” the AGs wrote.
“Mexico shouldn’t be permitted to exert de facto management over the rights of Americans to alleviate the implications of its personal coverage decisions,” they concluded.
The states of Montana, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming and Arizona submitted this amicus transient.
If the Supreme Courtroom decides to listen to the case, oral arguments might be scheduled this fall.
Reuters contributed to this report.
