Washington (AP) – The Supreme Court Thursday, blocked a trial of $ 10 billion that Mexico brought against the best firearms manufacturers in the United States alleging that business business practices have fueled a huge Cartel violence and blood effusions.
The unanimous decision rejected the case under American laws which largely protect manufacturers of liability shooters when their firearms are used in crime.
The major name manufacturers like Smith & Wesson had appealed to the judges after a lower court left the trial to make ahead in an exception for situations in which the companies themselves are accused of having violated the law.
But the judges found that Mexico had not advanced a plausible argument that companies had knowingly allowed firearms to be treated in the country. “He does not show, as most of the assistance and slaughter complaints do, all the specific criminal transactions that the defendants have (allegedly) helped,” wrote Elena Kagan in opinion.
Mexico asked the judges to let the case take place, saying that it was still in its infancy.
Asked about the case during her daily briefing, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum underlined another pursuit that the country filed in 2022 against five firearms and distributors in Arizona. “There are two tests,” she said. “We will see what is the result and we will let you know.”
The case that the Supreme Court launched Thursday in 2021 when the Mexican government filed A successful combination Against some of the largest firearms companies, including Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Colt and Glock.
Mexico has strict laws on firearms and has Just a store where people can legally buy firearms. But thousands of weapons are introduced as a smuggling Powerful drug cartels in the country Each year.
The Mexican government says that at least 70% of these weapons come from the United States. The trial claims that companies knew that weapons were sold to traffickers who had introduced them as a smuggling in Mexico and decided to take advantage of this market.
Companies reject the allegations of Mexico, arguing that the country’s trial is far from showing that they are responsible for relatively few people using their products to commit violence.
A federal judge rejected the trial under a 2005 law which protects fiery arms companies from most civil proceedings, but a court of appeal relaunched it. The 1st Boston Court of Appeals circuit concluded that it was an exception to the shield law for situations in which firearms are accused of having knowingly violated laws in their business practices.
This exception appeared in other cases, including in Proceedings resulting from mass fire.
Families of the victims of the mass shooting in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School In Newtown, Connecticut, for example, argued that it applied to their trial because the artillery farmer had violated the law of the state in the marketing of the AR-15 rifle used in the shooting, in which 20 first -year students and six educators were killed.
Families finally obtained a historic regulation of $ 73 million with Remington, the manufacturer of the rifle.
The Supreme Court’s decision does not seem to affect similar affairs, said David Pucino, legal director of Giffords Law Center to prevent armed violence. “All the survivors, in the United States, in Mexico and everywhere else, deserve their day in court, and we will continue to support them in their fight for justice,” he said.
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The writer Associated Press Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this story.
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