“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
While many people may only know parts of that quote, everyone can generally recognize it as the Second Amendment — spelled out as clearly as our Founding Fathers meant for it to be.
And yet, despite that, it’s hard to go any significant length of time without at least one loudmouth Democrat clamoring for that right to be infringed upon, all in the name of some nebulous sense of “safety” that seems especially elusive in the bluest areas.
It’s as nauseating as it is expected at this point, but at least Democrats are — nominally — Americans, some of whom probably genuinely do care about safety, despite their deeply misguided political affiliation.
And sure, if you really want to compliment Democrats, some of them probably pay taxes, too.
Given all that, perhaps you could charitably describe Democratic gun-grabbers as “misguided,” more than malicious.
(This writer certainly wouldn’t, but you could.)
The foreign government of Mexico deserves no such benefit of the doubt on this matter when they’re coming after the Second Amendment.
And the Supreme Court of the United States hammered that point home Thursday, according to the New York Times.
SCOTUS unanimously rejected a lawsuit presented by the Mexican government (Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos) that sought to pin the blame of its country’s horrific gun violence on multiple gun manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson.
“Mexico had claimed that the gun industry’s production and sale of arms in the United States helped fuel and supply drug cartels, harming the Mexican government,” the Times reported. “Mexican government lawyers also claimed the companies were aware that some of their guns were illegally trafficked, and that the country should therefore be allowed to sue under an exception in the law.”
Evidently, not a single justice agreed with that.
The unanimous decision, written by Justice Elena Kagan, referred to The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a law enacted in 2005 that effectively protects gun manufacturers from being found liable in crimes committed with their wares.
“But PLCAA’s general bar on these suits has an exception, usually called the predicate exception, relevant here,” Kagan wrote. “That exception applies to lawsuits in which the defendant manufacturer or seller ‘knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing’ of firearms, and the ‘violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.
“The predicate violation PLCAA demands may come from aiding and abetting someone else’s firearms offense.”
The decision continued: “Here, the Government of Mexico sued seven American gun manufacturers, alleging that the companies aided and abetted unlawful gun
sales that routed firearms to Mexican drug cartels. The basic theory of its suit is that the defendants failed to exercise ‘reasonable care’ to prevent trafficking of their guns into Mexico, and so are responsible for the harms arising there from the weapons’ misuse.
“That theory implicates PLCAA’s general prohibition, so the complaint tries to plead its way into the predicate exception.”
The conclusion: “Because Mexico’s complaint does not plausibly allege that the defendant gun manufacturers aided and abetted gun dealers’ unlawful sales of firearms to Mexican traffickers, PLCAA bars the lawsuit.”
Oh, well. It’s an ignominious end to a wildly ridiculous lawsuit.
Look, you shouldn’t even have to be a Second Amendment advocate to see how Mexico’s lawsuit would effectively cripple gun ownership.
Who’s going to be able to own guns if nobody’s making them, because every shooting in Chicago leads to multi-billion-dollar lawsuits?
Thankfully, even the liberal side of the Supreme Court seemed to agree that this lawsuit needed to be tossed out, if only because of the precedent set by the PLCAA.
As for our cousins south of the border, they should be ashamed of themselves.
They have the audacity to come after American companies and the Second Amendment when their own government clearly has no control over anything?
Lest we forget, it’s barely been a year since Reuters reported on Mexico’s political scene — marked by deep cartel control and shaped by a record-setting number of political assassinations.
That’s somehow Smith & Wesson’s fault?
Maybe if the Mexican government can get those political assassinations from dozens to perhaps single digits, they can try this lawsuit again.
It would still get smacked down with prejudice, but at least the country would have a modicum of moral high ground to stand on this issue.
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