BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Modification Basis has filed an amicus temporary with the U.S. Supreme Court docket in assist of Smith & Wesson in its authorized struggle in opposition to the federal government of Mexico, which seeks to carry the American gun producer chargeable for legal acts of third events in Mexico.
The 23-page temporary was submitted by attorneys Thomas R. McCarthy and Tiffany H. Bates of Arlington, Va. It outlines the historical past of firearms litigation and explains why Congress adopted the Safety of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) through the George W. Bush administration.
“As our temporary explains,” stated SAF Govt Director Adam Kraut, “permitting Mexico to prevail in suing firearm producers for the legal acts of third events defies logic and would embolden a brand new spherical of lawfare in opposition to trade members. Finally, these lawsuits would drive many producers out of enterprise and probably impose necessities on firearm designs which have been rejected by People. In the long run, it’s the Americans who would undergo, as their selections for arms can be restricted to the few surviving producers. The Second Modification is meaningless with out the power to amass arms.”
SAF notes in its temporary the Mexican authorities’s demand for actually billions of {dollars} in damages is precisely the sort of factor the PLCAA was designed to dam.
“Virtually 20 years in the past,” SAF founder and Govt Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb recalled, “Congress handed the Safety of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to forestall such litigation, which is actually designed to bankrupt the firearms trade, thus endangering the power of Americans to train their rights beneath the Second Modification. Permitting international governments to carry American firearms producers chargeable for legal exercise in different nations is each unjustifiable and preposterous.”
