Supreme Court of the United States

Congress enacted the PLCAA in 2005 to put a stop to these efforts to use novel tort theories to destroy a lawful industry and the fundamental rights it facilitates. The PLCAA’s first enumerated “purpose[]” is to “prohibit causes of action against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers of firearms or ammunition products” (“and their trade associations”) for harm “caused by the [...] That is why, for instance, the District of Columbia’s highest court held that a D. C. [...] App.104a (¶315).8 proximately caused cartel violence and the attendant fiscal harms for which Mexico seeks recompense.8 It is difficult to imagine allegations more in the teeth of the PLCAA. [...] That conclusion, which relies on an expansive conception of aiding-and-abetting liability, is egregiously wrong, puts the PLCAA at war with itself, and squarely contradicts this Court’s decision in Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, 598 U.S. 471 (2023). [...] Even if Mexico’s were a viable theory of aiding and abetting, it is not one that could satisfy the strictures of the PLCAA’s predicate exception. [...] Indeed, not even the First Circuit could bring itself to embrace the claim that the lawful manufacture and lawful sale of lawful products in the United States by federally licensed businesses has a “direct relation” to narco-terrorist activity in Mexico. [...] But when it comes to firearms and the Second Amendment, that sort of defiance is all too familiar. [...] 8, 2024)—even as municipalities have already begun using the very same laws to sue firearms industry members alleging that their (lawful and heavily regulated) manufacture, sale, and marketing of their lawful products is “unreasonable” and has contributed to the commission of violent crimes with guns, see, e.g., Complaint, City of Chicago v. Glock, Inc., No. 2024CH02216 (Ill. Cir. Ct. filed [...] While the fate of those laws and lawsuits must await another day, the need for this Court’s intervention in this lawsuit is acute. [...] There is also a deep irony in the recent wave of laws and lawsuits designed to erode the legislatively conferred protection of lawful commerce in arms in this country.