The country's highest court on Tuesday heard Smith & Wesson's petition to dismiss Mexico's controversial multi-billion dollar lawsuit against the U.S. firearms industry. 

The U.S. Supreme Court this week listened to just over 90 minutes of oral arguments for and against the dismissal petition in the case of Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc.

Noel Francisco, the former Solicitor General of the United States during President Trump's first term, argued for the gun companies, while Cate Stetson of Hogan Lovells, one of the largest law firms in the world, argued for Mexico. 

First filed in 2021, the $10 billion suit was supported by no less than a dozen anti-gun states such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Illinois. It sought to put some of the biggest names in the American gun industry, including Barrett, Beretta, Century Arms, Colt, Glock, Ruger, and Smith & Wesson, on the hook for the out-of-control narco cartel violence that has plagued Mexico since 2006. 

A federal judge tossed the suit in October 2022, saying the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act prevented the claim, but Mexico pushed the issue and appealed to the Massachusetts-based U.S. First Circuit Court, which kept the case alive and handed the issue to a lower court in Boston. 

Then in August, a court agreed to let most of the defendants – except Massachusetts-based S&W – out of the suit, citing that none of the activities the Mexican government claimed happened in the Commonwealth. A dismissal petition from S&W was accepted by the Supreme Court last October. 

This set the stage for Tuesday's arguments, with both sides taking a different view of the PLCAA, which protects the firearms industry from frivolous lawsuits and "lawfare." 

While Stetson contended that the gunmakers "aided and abetted" violations of gun laws to "put guns in criminals' hands and those criminals harmed Mexico," thus voiding PLCAA protections, Francisco closed his argument with the importance of what PLCAA itself protects. 

"My final point is just to step back and talk about what PLCAA was really about. At the end of the day, PLCAA is about protecting Second Amendment rights. It's not just about protecting the manufacturers, the distributors, and the retailers, but it's protecting the right of every American to exercise their right under the Second Amendment to possess and bear firearms. That right is meaningless if there are no manufacturers, retailers, and distributors that provide them in the first place."

Court watchers read the tea leaves and maintained that the Supremes were likely to block Mexico's suit. 

"A majority of the court appeared to agree with the gun makers that the Mexican government’s suit is barred by a 2005 law intended to shield the gun industry from lawsuits in U.S. courts for the misuse of guns by others," noted legal scholar Amy Howe in her argument analysis at SCOTUSblog. 

Attorney Andrew Branca with the Law of Self-Defense channel did a two-hour running commentary as he streamed the arguments and in the end, threw up his hands and said, "This was not a good day for Mexico when Sotomayor and Jackson are pushing back hard on your theory of liability...I don't see this going anywhere."

Banner image: Vintage Third Gen S&W 5906. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)