Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos

605 U.S. 280

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: June 5, 2025
• Docket: 23-1141
• Status: Published

Opinion

PRELIMINARY PRINT

Volume 605 U. S. Part 1 Pages 280–302

OFFICIAL REPORTS OF

THE SUPREME COURT June 5, 2025

REBECCA A. WOMELDORF reporter of decisions

NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors. 280 OCTOBER TERM, 2024

Syllabus

SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC., et al. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the rst circuit No. 23–1141. Argued March 4, 2025—Decided June 5, 2025 The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) bars certain lawsuits against manufacturers and sellers of frearms. As relevant, it provides that a “qualifed civil liability action . . . may not be brought in any Federal or State court,” 15 U. S. C. § 7902(a), and defnes that term to include a “civil action or proceeding” against a frearms manufacturer or seller stemming from “the criminal or unlawful misuse” of a frearm by “a third party,” § 7903(5)(A). But PLCAA's general bar on these suits has an exception, usually called the predicate exception, relevant here. That exception applies to lawsuits in which the defendant manu- facturer or seller “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applica- ble to the sale or marketing” of frearms, and the “violation was a proxi- mate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.” § 7903(5)(A)(iii). The predicate violation PLCAA demands may come from aiding and abetting someone else's frearms offense. PLCAA itself lists as exam- ples two ways in which aiding and abetting qualifes—when a gun manu- facturer (or seller) aids and abets another person in making a false state- ment about a gun sale's legality or in making specifed criminal sales. See § 7903(5)(A)(iii)(I)–(II). And more broadly, because federal law provides that whoever “aids [and] abets” a federal crime “is punishable as a principal,” 18 U. S. C. § 2(a), a gun manufacturer that aids and abets a federal gun crime may itself commit a PLCAA predicate violation. Here, the Government of Mexico sued seven American gun manufac- turers, alleging that the companies aided and abetted unlawful gun sales that routed frearms to Mexican drug cartels. The basic theory of its suit is that the defendants failed to exercise “reasonable care” to prevent traffcking 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. It alleges that the manufacturers were “willful accessories” in unlawful gun sales by retail gun dealers, which in turn enabled Mexican criminals to acquire guns. And it sets out three kinds of allegations relating to how the manufacturers aided and abetted retailers' unlawful sales: The manufacturers allegedly (1) supply frearms to retail dealers whom they know illegally sell to Mexican gun Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 281

traffckers; (2) have failed to impose the kind of controls on their distri- bution networks that would prevent illegal sales to Mexican traffckers; and (3) make “design and marketing decisions” intended to stimulate cartel members' demand for their products. The District Court dis- missed the complaint, but the First Circuit reversed, fnding Mexico had plausibly alleged that defendants aided and abetted illegal frearms sales. Held: Because Mexico's complaint does not plausibly allege that the de- fendant gun manufacturers aided and abetted gun dealers' unlawful sales of firearms to Mexican traffickers, PLCAA bars the lawsuit. Pp. 291–299. (a) Federal aiding-and-abetting law refects the view that a person may be responsible for a crime he has not personally carried out if he deliberately helps another complete its commission. To aid and abet a crime, a person must take an affrmative act in furtherance of the of- fense and intend to facilitate its commission—or as Judge Learned Hand stated these requisites, must “participate in” a crime “as in something that he wishes to bring about” and “seek by his action to make it suc- ceed.” United States v. Peoni, 100 F. 2d 401, 402. In elaborating on that demand, this Court has developed several ancillary principles. First, aiding and abetting is most commonly liability for specifc wrong- ful acts, though broader liability for a category of misconduct is possible if a wrongdoer's participation is correspondingly “pervasive, systemic, and culpable.” Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, 598 U. S. 471, 502. Second, aiding and abetting usually requires misfeasance rather than non- feasance: Absent an independent duty to act, failures, omissions, or inactions will rarely support liability. And third, routine and general activity that happens on occasion to assist crime—in essence, inciden- tally—is unlikely to count as aiding and abetting. Thus, for instance, an ordinary merchant does not become liable for criminal misuse of her goods simply by knowing that, in some fraction of cases, misuse will occur. Two of this Court's cases illustrate these principles. In Direct Sales Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 703, the Court held that a mail-order pharmacy could be convicted for assisting a small-town doctor's illegal distribution of narcotics. The pharmacy sold the doctor massive quanti- ties of morphine (5,000 to 6,000 half-grain tablets monthly versus the typical physician's 400 quarter-grain tablets annually), actively stimu- lated his purchases through special discounts and high-pressure sales methods, and continued these practices despite law enforcement warn- ings. All this showed that the pharmacy not only knew of and acqui- esced in the doctor's illicit enterprise but “join[ed] both mind and hand with him to make its accomplishment possible.” Id., at 713. By con- 282 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Syllabus

trast, in Twitter, the Court dismissed aiding-and-abetting claims against social-media companies for aiding and abetting a terrorist attack carried out by ISIS. Although the plaintiffs there alleged that ISIS supporters used the companies' platforms for recruiting and fundraising, and that the companies knew this but failed to adequately remove ISIS content, that was not enough to make the companies liable for ISIS's terrorist acts. At most, the plaintiffs alleged that the companies provided their platforms for general use, then “stood back and watched” as ISIS mis- used them. 598 U. S., at 499. And more was needed for a provider of generally available goods and services to be liable for a customer's misuse of them—for example, conduct of the kind in Direct Sales. Pp. 291–293. (b) Against the backdrop of that law, Mexico's complaint does not plausibly allege that the defendant manufacturers aided and abetted gun dealers' unlawful sales of frearms to Mexican traffckers. To begin, the complaint sets for itself a high bar. It does not pinpoint, as most aiding- and-abetting claims do, any specifc criminal transactions that the de- fendants (allegedly) assisted. Instead, it levels a more general accusa- tion: that all the manufacturers assist some number of unidentifed rogue dealers in violation of various legal bars. The systemic nature of that charge cannot help but heighten Mexico's burden. To survive, it must be backed by plausible allegations of pervasive, systemic, and culpable assistance. Mexico's lead claim—that the manufacturers elect to sell guns to, among others, known rogue dealers—fails to clear that bar. For one thing, it is far from clear that such behavior, without more, could ever count as aiding and abetting under the Court's precedents. And in any event, Mexico has not said enough to make its allegations on this point plausible: It does not confront that the manufacturers do not directly supply any dealers, and its complaint does not name alleged bad-apple dealers or provide grounds for thinking that anyone up the supply chain often acquires that information. What Mexico has plausibly alleged is only that manufacturers know some unidentifed dealers routinely vio- late the law—but this describes “indifference” rather than assistance, similar to the insuffcient allegations in Twitter. For related reasons, Mexico's second set of allegations—that the man- ufacturers have declined to suitably regulate the dealers' practices— cannot fll the gap. Of course, responsible manufacturers might well impose constraints on their distribution chains to reduce the possibility of unlawful conduct. But a failure to do so is what Twitter called “pas- sive nonfeasance.” 598 U. S., at 500. Such “omissions” and “inac- tions”—especially in an already highly regulated industry—are rarely the stuff of aiding-and-abetting liability, and nothing in Mexico's allega- tions makes them so. Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 283

Finally, Mexico's allegations about design and marketing decisions add nothing of consequence. Mexico focuses on production of “military style” assault weapons, but these products are widely legal and pur- chased by ordinary consumers. Manufacturers cannot be charged with assisting criminal acts simply because Mexican cartel members also pre- fer these guns. The same applies to frearms with Spanish-language names or graphics alluding to Mexican history—while they may be “cov- eted by the cartels,” they also may appeal to “millions of law-abiding Hispanic Americans. ” Even the failure to make guns with non- defaceable serial numbers cannot show that manufacturers have “joined both mind and hand” with lawbreakers in the manner required for aid- ing and abetting. Pp. 294–298. (c) This conclusion aligns with PLCAA's core purpose. Congress enacted PLCAA to halt lawsuits attempting to make gun manufacturers pay for harms resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of fre- arms. Mexico's suit closely resembles those lawsuits. And while the predicate exception allows some such suits to proceed, accepting Mexi- co's theory would swallow most of the rule. The Court doubts Con- gress intended to draft such a capacious way out of PLCAA, and in fact it did not. Pp. 298–299. 91 F. 4th 511, reversed and remanded. Kagan, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Thomas, J., post, p. 299, and Jackson, J., post, p. 300, fled concurring opinions.

Noel J. Francisco argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Anthony J. Dick, Andrew E. Lelling, Kelly Holt Rodriguez, James M. Campbell, James W. Porter II, Peter M. Durney, John F. Renzulli, S. Jan Hueber, John G. O'Neill, and James Vogts. Catherine E. Stetson argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were Danielle Desaulniers Stempel, Michael J. West, Sam H. Zwingli, Jonathan E. Lowy, Yaacov Meiseles, Steve D. Shadowen, and Richard M. Brunell.*

*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for the U. S. House of Representatives by Matthew B. Berry, Todd B. Tatelman, Bradley Craigmyle, and Andy T. Wang; for the State of Montana et al. by Austin Knudsen, Attorney General of Montana, Christian B. Corrigan, Solicitor General, Peter M. Torstensen, Jr., Deputy Solicitor General, and Tanner Baird, Assistant Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys General for their 284 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Opinion of the Court

Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court. The Government of Mexico brought this lawsuit against seven American gun manufacturers. As required by a fed-

respective States as follows: Steve Marshall of Alabama, Treg Taylor of Alaska, Tim Griffn of Arkansas, Ashley Moody of Florida, Christopher M. Carr of Georgia, Raúl R. Labrador of Idaho, Theodore E. Rokita of Indiana, Brenna Bird of Iowa, Kris Kobach of Kansas, Russell Coleman of Kentucky, Liz Murrill of Louisiana, Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, Andrew Bailey of Missouri, Michael T. Hilgers of Nebraska, John M. Formella of New Hampshire, Drew H. Wrigley of North Dakota, Dave Yost of Ohio, Gentner F. Drummond of Oklahoma, Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Marty J. Jackley of South Dakota, Jonathan Skrmetti of Tennessee, Ken Paxton of Texas, Sean D. Reyes of Utah, Jason Miyares of Virginia, Pat- rick Morrisey of West Virginia, and Bridget Hill of Wyoming; for the American Constitutional Rights Union et al. by John J. Park, Jr.; for the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce by Michael B. Busch- bacher, Jonathan Berry, Jared M. Kelson, and William P. Barr; for the Atlantic Legal Foundation by Lawrence S. Ebner and John Parker Sweeney; for The Buckeye Institute et al. by David C. Tryon and D. Sean Nation; for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America by Steven A. Engel, Michael H. McGinley, Jonathan D. Urick, and Tamer Mallat; for the Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., by David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson, and John D. Ohlendorf; for the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Inc., et al. by Steven J. Obermeier; for the Land- mark Legal Foundation by Matthew C. Forys, Michael J. O'Neill, and Richard P. Hutchison; for the National Association for Gun Rights, Inc., et al. by Gary M. Lawkowski; for the National Rife Association of America et al. by Joseph G. S. Greenlee, Erin M. Erhardt, David B. Kopel, and George A. Mocsary; for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc., by Paul D. Clement, Erin E. Murphy, Matthew D. Rowen, Lawrence G. Keane, and Shelby Baird Smith; for the Product Liability Advisory Coun- cil et al. by Philip S. Goldberg and Cary Silverman; for the Second Amendment Foundation by Thomas R. McCarthy and Tiffany H. Bates; for the Washington Legal Foundation by Cory L. Andrews; and for Sen. Ted Cruz et al. by H. Christopher Bartolomucci, Gene C. Schaerr, and Kenneth A. Klukowski. William J. Olson, Jeremiah L. Morgan, and John I. Harris III fled a brief for Gun Owners of America, Inc., et al. as amici curiae urging vacatur. Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for the Common- wealth of Massachusetts et al. by Andrea Joy Campbell, Attorney General of Massachusetts, David C. Kravitz, State Solicitor, and Anna Lumelsky, Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 285

Opinion of the Court

eral statute, Mexico seeks to show (among other things) that the defendant companies participated in the unlawful sale or marketing of frearms. See 15 U. S. C. § 7903(5)(A)(iii). More specifcally, Mexico alleges that the companies aided and abetted unlawful sales routing guns to Mexican drug car- tels. The question presented is whether Mexico's complaint plausibly pleads that conduct. We conclude it does not.

I A The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), 119 Stat. 2095, 15 U. S. C. §§ 7901–7903, bars cer- tain lawsuits against manufacturers and sellers of frearms. Congress enacted the statute in response to a spate of litiga- tion trying to hold gun companies liable in tort for harms “caused by the misuse of frearms by third parties, including criminals.” § 7901(a)(3) (“Findings” section). To curb such suits, PLCAA provides that a “qualifed civil liability ac-

Deputy State Solicitor, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Rob Bonta of California, William Tong of Con- necticut, Kathleen Jennings of Delaware, Brian L. Schwalb of the District of Columbia, Anne E. Lopez of Hawaii, Kwame Raoul of Illinois, Anthony G. Brown of Maryland, Dana Nessel of Michigan, Keith Ellison of Minne- sota, Aaron D. Ford of Nevada, Matthew J. Platkin of New Jersey, Raúl Torrez of New Mexico, Letitia James of New York, Dan Rayfeld of Ore- gon, Michelle A. Henry of Pennsylvania, and Charity R. Clark of Ver- mont; for Fair and Just Prosecution by David M. Gossett and Thaila K. Sundaresan; for Law Enforcement Offcers by Julie G. Reiser; for the March For Our Lives Action Fund by Michael J. Dell; for Mexican Activ- ists et al. by R. Stanton Jones; for Social Science Scholars et al. by Amanda Shafer Berman, Scott L. Winkelman, and Joachim B. Steinberg; for Sen. Richard Blumenthal et al. by Alexandra C. Eynon and Eugene A. Sokoloff; and for Erwin Chemerinsky et al. by Robert S. Peck. Briefs of amici curiae were fled for Gun Violence Prevention Groups by Jason C. Murray, Abigail M. Hinchcliff, Leigh Rome, and Esther Sanchez-Gomez; for Professors of Tort Law et al. by Timothy M. Hag- gerty, Anil K. Vassanji, Sofa Syed, Rupita Chakraborty, and Hillel Y. Levin; and for G. Antaeus B. Edelsohn by Joan Deborah B. Edelsohn. 286 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Opinion of the Court

tion,” as defned in the Act, “may not be brought in any Fed- eral or State court.” § 7902(a). The Act's defnition of that term includes a “civil action or proceeding” against a fre- arms manufacturer or seller stemming from “the criminal or unlawful misuse” of a firearm by “a third party. ” § 7903(5)(A). But PLCAA's general bar on those suits has an exception, usually called the predicate exception, relevant here. That exception applies to suits in which the defendant manufac- turer or seller “knowingly violated a State or Federal stat- ute applicable to the sale or marketing” of frearms, and that “violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.” § 7903(5)(A)(iii). If a plaintiff can show that provision is satisfed—that, say, a manufacturer committed a gun-sale violation proximately causing the harm at issue— then a suit can proceed, even though it arises from a third party's later misuse of a gun. Or otherwise said, the predi- cate violation opens a path to making a gun manufacturer civilly liable for the way a third party has used the weapon it made. Notably here, the predicate violation PLCAA demands may come from aiding and abetting someone else's frearms offense. The predicate exception itself lists as examples two ways in which aiding and abetting qualifes—when a gun manufacturer (or seller) aids and abets another person either in making a false statement about a gun sale's legality or in making specifed criminal sales. See § 7903(5)(A)(iii)(I)–(II). And more broadly, aiding and abetting can qualify as a PLCAA predicate violation by virtue of another law assimi- lating an accomplice's liability to a principal's. The federal statute generally accomplishing that task is 18 U. S. C. § 2(a), which provides that whoever “aids [and] abets” the commis- sion of a federal crime “is punishable as a principal.” Be- cause of that provision, a gun manufacturer that aids and abets a federal gun crime may itself commit a PLCAA predi- cate violation. So principles of aiding and abetting from the Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 287

criminal law—establishing what counts as aiding and abet- ting and what does not—may determine whether a plaintiff can satisfy PLCAA's predicate exception and thus proceed with a civil suit otherwise barred. And that dependence on aiding-and-abetting law is a feature of the case before us.

B Mexico has a severe gun violence problem, which its gov- ernment views as coming from north of the border. The country has only a single gun store, and issues fewer than 50 gun permits each year. But gun traffckers can purchase frearms in the United States—often in illegal transactions— and deliver them to drug cartels in Mexico. Those groups, predictably enough, use the imported frearms to commit se- rious crimes—drug dealing, kidnapping, murder, and others. According to the Mexican Government, as many as 90% of the guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico originated in the United States. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 7a (Complaint). The Mexican Government, seeking redress for this gun vi- olence, brought suit in 2021 against seven American frearms manufacturers.1 The suit, brought in a U. S. District Court, asserts a variety of tort claims against the defendants, mostly sounding in negligence. The basic theory is that the defendants failed to exercise “reasonable care” to prevent traffcking of their guns into Mexico, and so are responsible for the harms arising there from the weapons' misuse. Id., at 184a. That theory, as all agree, runs straight into PLCAA's general prohibition. Mexico's action, that is,

1 The defendant manufacturers are Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc.; Bar- rett Firearms Manufacturing, Inc.; Beretta USA Corp.; Century Interna- tional Arms, Inc.; Colt's Manufacturing Company, LLC; Glock, Inc.; and Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc. The suit also names as a defendant one gun distributor—Witmer Public Safety Group, Inc., which does business as In- terstate Arms. But the complaint barely mentions that company, so for simplicity's sake we refer to all the defendants as manufacturers. 288 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Opinion of the Court

seeks to hold frearms manufacturers liable for “the criminal or unlawful misuse” of guns by third parties—and so, accord- ing to PLCAA, “may not be brought. ” §§ 7902(a), 7903(5)(A). The complaint thus tries to plead its way into PLCAA's predicate exception. It asserts, as that exception requires, that the third-party misuse of guns in Mexico re- sulted from the manufacturers' knowing violations of gun laws. See § 7903(5)(A)(iii). More specifcally, the complaint alleges that the manufac- turers' frearms violations were ones of aiding and abetting, rather than of independent commission. See id., at 71a (in- voking this Court's aiding-and-abetting caselaw); Tr. of Oral Arg. 58–59 (agreeing that the predicate violation alleged rests on § 2, the federal aiding-and-abetting statute). The manufacturers, according to Mexico, were “willful accessor- ies” in unlawful gun sales by retail dealers, which in turn enabled Mexican criminals to acquire guns (and use them to commit violent offenses). App. to Pet. for Cert. 71a. The complaint sets out three kinds of allegations relating to how the manufacturers aided and abetted retailers' unlawful sales. Mexico's primary line of argument is that the manufactur- ers supply frearms to retail dealers whom they know ille- gally sell to Mexican gun traffckers. The complaint ex- plains that the manufacturers use a three-tier distribution system: They sell to wholesale distributors, who sell to retail dealers, who sell to customers. See id., at 140a. A “small minority” of the dealers are responsible for most of the sales to Mexican traffckers; and those sales often violate federal gun laws—by, for example, involving straw purchasers or proceeding without background checks. Id., at 44a; see id., at 86a.2 Still more, the complaint alleges—and this is key— that the manufacturers know “who th[ose] bad apple dealers 2 A straw purchaser is “a person who buys a gun on someone else's be- half while falsely claiming that it is for himself.” Abramski v. United States, 573 U. S. 169, 171–172 (2014). Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 289

are.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 70; see App. to Pet. for Cert. 44a (The defendants “know that these dealers engage in” prohibited practices); see also id., at 54a–55a, 80a (similar). Yet the manufacturers continue to supply those dealers, as they do legitimate ones, in order to boost their own profts. By choosing not to cut off the fow of frearms to the known rogue dealers, the complaint asserts, the manufacturers be- come “culpable and intentional participant[s]” in the dealers' federal “statutory violations.” Id., at 42a, 85a.3 Second, Mexico claims that the manufacturers have failed to impose the kind of controls on their distribution networks that would prevent illegal sales to Mexican traffckers. There are, Mexico contends, a raft of ways manufacturers could put “commonsense restraints on their supply chains.” Brief for Respondent 32. For example, they could prohibit dealers from making “bulk sales” to individual customers, because guns sold in that way (Mexico says) are likely to be “diverted to the illegal market.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 86a– 87a. So too, they could bar dealers from selling their fre- arms at gun shows or out of their homes, because those sales (Mexico again says) often ignore regulatory requirements like background checks. See id., at 88a–89a, 91a–92a. And more generally, manufacturers could implement processes for “monitor[ing] or supervis[ing] their [dealers'] sales prac- tices,” so as to minimize illegal sales to traffckers. Id., at 89a; see id., at 137a–138a. Yet the defendant manufacturers, Mexico states, have done none of those things. Rather, they have embraced “a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil ap- proach” to “their gun distribution system.” Id., at 32a.

3 The complaint makes no allegations about the relationship between the manufacturers and the distributors, even though the distributors stand in between the manufacturers and the dealers selling to Mexican traffckers. Neither does the complaint, in setting out the assertions above, distinguish the lone distributor defendant from the manufacturer defendants. See supra, at 287, n. 1. Indeed, the complaint says virtually nothing about the distributor's sales practices, to bad-apple dealers or otherwise. 290 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Opinion of the Court

And that quite “deliberate[ ]” approach works to “funnel frearms to the cartels.” Brief for Respondent 23. And third, Mexico alleges that the manufacturers make “design and marketing decisions” intended to stimulate car- tel members' demand for their products. Ibid. Most prom- inently, Mexico asserts that the manufacturers have “increased production of military-style” assault weapons, with an eye toward cultivating the criminal market. App. to Pet. for Cert. 104a; see Brief for Respondent 23. For example, one manufacturer has made a “.50 caliber long range sniper rife,” which cartels have used to attack the police and military. App. to Pet. for Cert. 99a. In addition, Mexico says, the manufacturers make guns whose serial numbers can be “obliterated or defaced,” thus hindering police tracing efforts. Id., at 131a. And the manufacturers produce frearms whose names or aesthetic features appeal to cartel members. Colt, for example, makes the “.38 cali- ber Super `El Jefe' pistol; the .38 caliber Super `El Grito' pistol; and the .38 caliber `Emiliano Zapata 1911' pistol”—the last of which includes Zapata's image and the words “It is better to die standing than to live on your knees.” Id., at 75a. The defendant manufacturers moved to dismiss Mexico's complaint, contending that PLCAA barred the suit. The District Court granted the motion. 633 F. Supp. 3d 425, 432 (Mass. 2022). But the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed. It found that Mexico's complaint plausibly “allege[d] that defendants have been aiding and abetting the [illegal] sale of frearms by dealers.” 91 F. 4th 511, 529 (2024). And because, in the court's view, the complaint also plausibly alleged that the defendants' aiding-and- abetting conduct proximately caused injury to Mexico, PLCAA's predicate exception was satisfed. Id., at 538. As a result, Mexico's suit against the manufacturers could go forward. We granted certiorari. 603 U. S. 948 (2024). Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 291

II Mexico's complaint survives PLCAA only if, in accord with usual pleading rules, it has plausibly alleged conduct falling within the statute's predicate exception. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U. S. 662, 678–679 (2009). Because Mexico relies exclusively on an aiding-and-abetting theory, that means plausibly alleging that the manufacturers have aided and abetted gun dealers' frearms offenses (such as sales to straw purchasers), so as to proximately cause harm to Mexico. See supra, at 286–287. We need not address the proximate cause question, because we fnd that Mexico has not plausibly alleged aiding and abetting on the manufacturers' part. “Plausibly” does not mean “probably,” but “it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlaw- fully.” Iqbal, 556 U. S., at 678. And Mexico has not met that bar. Its complaint does not plausibly allege the kind of “conscious . . . and culpable participation in another's wrong- doing” needed to make out an aiding-and-abetting charge. Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, 598 U. S. 471, 493 (2023).

A Federal aiding-and-abetting law “refects a centuries-old view of culpability: that a person may be responsible for a crime he has not personally carried out” if he deliberately “helps another to complete its commission.” Rosemond v. United States, 572 U. S. 65, 70 (2014); see 18 U. S. C. § 2. To aid and abet a crime, a person must “take[ ] an affrmative act in furtherance of that offense.” Rosemond, 572 U. S., at 71. And he must “intend to facilitate [the offense's] commis- sion.” Ibid. Or as Judge Learned Hand stated those req- uisites, in what has become a canonical formulation, an aider and abettor must “participate in” a crime “as in something that he wishes to bring about” and “seek by his action to make it succeed.” United States v. Peoni, 100 F. 2d 401, 402 (CA2 1938); see Twitter, 598 U. S., at 490; Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U. S. 613, 619 (1949). 292 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Opinion of the Court

In elaborating on that demand, this Court has developed several ancillary principles. First, aiding and abetting is most commonly “a rule of secondary liability for specifc wrongful acts.” Twitter, 598 U. S., at 494 (emphasis added). It is possible for someone to aid and abet a broad category of misconduct, but then his participation must be correspond- ingly “pervasive, systemic, and culpable.” Id., at 502. Sec- ond, aiding and abetting usually requires misfeasance rather than nonfeasance. Absent an “independent duty to act,” a person's “failure[s],” “omissions,” or “inactions”—even if in some sense blameworthy—will rarely support aiding-and- abetting liability. Id., at 489, 500. And third, routine and general activity that happens on occasion to assist in a crime—in essence, “incidentally”—is unlikely to count as aid- ing and abetting. Rosemond, 572 U. S., at 77, n. 8. So, for example, an “ordinary merchant[ ]” does not “become liable” for all criminal “misuse[s] of [his] goods,” even if he knows that in some fraction of cases misuse will occur. Twitter, 598 U. S., at 489; see id., at 499. The merchant becomes lia- ble only if, beyond providing the good on the open market, he takes steps to “promote” the resulting crime and “make it his own.” United States v. Falcone, 109 F. 2d 579, 581 (CA2) (L. Hand, J.), aff'd, 311 U. S. 205 (1940). Two of our cases—one approving liability for aiding anoth- er's crime, the other not—illustrate how all this doctrine plays out in practice. In Direct Sales Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 703 (1943), we held that a mail-order pharmacy could be convicted for assisting a small-town doctor's illegal distribution of narcotics. The pharmacy, Direct Sales, sold huge amounts of morphine to Dr. John Tate: Whereas the average physician required no more than 400 quarter-grain tablets annually, Direct Sales sold Tate some 5,000 to 6,000 half-grain tablets every month. See id., at 706. Still more, Direct Sales “actively stimulated” Tate's purchases, by giv- ing him special discounts for his most massive orders and using “high-pressure sales methods.” Id., at 705, 711. And Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 293

it did all that against the backdrop of law enforcement warn- ings: The Bureau of Narcotics had informed Direct Sales that “it was being used as a source of supply” by lawbreaking doctors. Id., at 707. All that evidence, this Court found, was enough to sustain Direct Sales's conviction. It showed that Direct Sales “not only kn[ew of] and acquiesce[d]” in Tate's “illicit enterprise,” but “join[ed] both mind and hand with him to make its accomplishment possible.” Id., at 713. By contrast, this Court recently ordered the dismissal of a suit against several social-media companies for aiding and abetting a terrorist attack carried out by ISIS. See Twit- ter, 598 U. S., at 506–507. The plaintiffs, victims of the at- tack, alleged that adherents of ISIS used the companies' platforms for recruiting and fundraising. The complaint fur- ther asserted that the companies knew that was so, yet failed to identify and remove the ISIS-related accounts and con- tent. See id., at 478, 481. But we held that was not enough to make the companies liable for ISIS's terrorist acts. The companies' relationship with ISIS and its supporters, we rea- soned, was “the same as their relationship with their billion- plus other users: arm's length, passive, and largely indif- ferent.” Id., at 500. There were no allegations that the companies had given ISIS “any special treatment,” or “en- courag[ed], solicit[ed], or advis[ed]” the group. Id., at 498, 500. Instead, after providing their platforms for general use, the companies “at most allegedly stood back and watched.” Id., at 499. More was needed, we stated, for a provider of generally available goods or services to be liable for a customer's misuse of them—for example, conduct of the kind in Direct Sales. See Twitter, 598 U. S., at 502. When a company merely knows that “some bad actors” are taking “advantage” of its products for criminal purposes, it does not aid and abet. Id., at 503. And that is so even if the com- pany could adopt measures to reduce their users' down- stream crimes. See ibid. 294 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Opinion of the Court

B Viewed against the backdrop of that law, Mexico's com- plaint does not plausibly allege that the defendant manufac- turers aided and abetted gun dealers' unlawful sales of fre- arms to Mexican traffckers. We have little doubt that, as the complaint asserts, some such sales take place—and that the manufacturers know they do. But still, Mexico has not adequately pleaded what it needs to: that the manufacturers “participate in” those sales “as in something that [they] wish[ ] to bring about,” and “seek by [their] action to make” succeed. Peoni, 100 F. 2d, at 402; see Twitter, 598 U. S., at 490. To begin with, Mexico's complaint sets for itself a high bar. The complaint does not pinpoint, as most aiding-and-abetting claims do, any specifc criminal transactions that the defend- ants (allegedly) assisted. It does not say, for example, that a given manufacturer aided a given frearms dealer, at a par- ticular time and place, in selling guns to a given Mexican traffcker not legally permitted to buy them under a specifed statute. Instead, the complaint levels a more general accu- sation: that all the manufacturers assist some number of un- identifed rogue gun dealers in making a host of frearms sales in violation of various legal bars. The systemic nature of that charge is not necessarily fatal. But as noted earlier, it cannot help but heighten Mexico's burden. See supra, at 292. To survive, the charge must be backed by plausible allegations of “pervasive, systemic, and culpable assistance.” Twitter, 598 U. S., at 502. Mexico's lead claim—that the manufacturers elect to sell guns to, among others, known rogue dealers, see supra, at 288–289—fails to clear that bar, for a package of reasons. For one thing, it is far from clear that such behavior, without more, could ever count as aiding and abetting under our precedents. Direct Sales is the case Mexico relies on. See Brief for Respondent 24. But that case was more particu- larized than this one, involving as it did the aid given to a Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 295

single named offender in violating a specifed narcotics law. And yet more important, the abettor there did more than sell a product to a known lawbreaker, as it would to all oth- ers. The pharmacy, recall, not only supplied Dr. Tate, but also “actively stimulated” his far-greater-than-average pur- chases. 319 U. S., at 705; see id., at 712, n. 8 (noting the signifcance of “stimulation” and “active incitement to pur- chase”); id., at 713 (similarly stating that “[t]here [was] in- formed and interested coöperation, stimulation, instigation”). Mexico's complaint asserts nothing similar here. To the con- trary, the complaint repeatedly states that the manufactur- ers treat rogue dealers just the same as they do law-abiding ones—selling to everyone, and on equivalent terms. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 44a–46a, 79a, 83a–84a, 139a–141a. So the complaint, even if taken at face value, would stretch the bounds of our caselaw. And in any event, we cannot take the allegation here at face value, because Mexico has not said enough to make it plausible. In asserting that the manufacturers intentionally supply guns to bad-apple dealers, Mexico never confronts that the manufacturers do not directly supply any dealers, bad-apple or otherwise. They instead sell frearms to mid- dlemen distributors, whom Mexico has never claimed lack independence. See supra, at 288, 289, n. 3.4 Given that in- dustry structure, Mexico's complaint must offer some reason to believe that the manufacturers attend to the conduct of individual gun dealers, two levels down. But it does not so much as address that issue. And even assuming the manu- facturers know everything the distributors know, the com- plaint still would not adequately support the charge that they have identifed the bad-apple dealers. Mexico does not itself name those dealers, though they are the ostensible

4 As noted above, Mexico's suit names one distributor as a defendant. See supra, at 287, n. 1. But the complaint says virtually nothing about that company, and nothing at all about its choice of dealers. 296 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Opinion of the Court

principals in the illegal transactions claimed.5 Nor does Mexico provide grounds for thinking that anyone up the sup- ply chain—whether manufacturer or distributor—often ac- quires that information. Indeed, the complaint points out that government agencies only sporadically provide up- stream companies with information tracing Mexican crime guns to certain dealers. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 47a–48a. So Mexico's allegation on this score is all speculation; even on a motion to dismiss, it is not enough. What Mexico has plausibly pleaded respecting sales to of- fenders is a lesser wrong, which does not rise to the level of aiding and abetting. Mexico's complaint alleges that some, though unidentifed, dealers often engage in illegal transac- tions with Mexican traffckers. See id., at 43a–44a, 71a–73a, 81a–85a, 87a. So too, the complaint alleges that the manu- facturers know that much to be true—that among the whole class of dealers, there are some who routinely violate the law. See id., at 31a–34a, 43a–50a, 82a–85a, 87a. And fnally the complaint alleges, with suffcient plausibility, that the manu- facturers could do more than they do to fgure out who those rogue dealers are, and then to cut off their supply of guns. See id., at 34a–39a, 46a–50a, 132a–141a. But that is to say little more than the plaintiffs said in Twitter. According to the complaint there, the social-media companies knew that among their customers were ISIS supporters, whom they could have done more to identify and remove. See 598 U. S., at 481–482; supra, at 293. Still, we decided, that “nonfea- sance” was not enough to hold the companies responsible for the terrorists' unlawful acts. Twitter, 598 U. S., at 489.

5 At one point, Mexico's complaint cites a Washington Post article from 2010 naming “12 dealers that sold the most guns recovered” at crime scenes in Mexico. App. to Pet. for Cert. 44a; see Tr. of Oral Arg. 62. But the article itself explains that those dealers could have made the list be- cause of “sales volume [or] geography” rather than especial wrongdoing. J. Grimaldi & S. Horwitz, Mexican Cartels Wielding American Weapons, Washington Post, Dec. 13, 2010, p. A10, col. 1. Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 297

And the same is true here, for the same reasons. Mexico's plausible allegations are of “indifferen[ce],” rather than as- sistance. Id., at 500; see id., at 498. They are of the manu- facturers' merely allowing some unidentifed “bad actors” to make illegal use of their wares. Id., at 503. For related reasons, Mexico's second set of allegations— that the manufacturers have declined to suitably regulate the dealers' practices, see supra, at 289–290—cannot fll the gap. Of course, responsible manufacturers might well im- pose constraints on their distribution chains to reduce the possibility of unlawful conduct. (Mexico's prime examples, recall, are bans on bulk sales or sales from homes—permit- ted under federal law, but in Mexico's view conducive to un- lawful transactions. See supra, at 289.) So too, those man- ufacturers might decide, as Mexico urges, to themselves monitor dealers' sales for law violations. See ibid. But a failure to do so is, again, what Twitter called “passive nonfea- sance”—a “failure to stop” independent retailers down- stream from making unlawful sales. 598 U. S., at 500. Such “omissions” and “inactions,” especially in an already highly regulated industry, are rarely the stuff of aiding-and- abetting liability. Id., at 489. And nothing special in Mexi- co's allegations makes them so. A manufacturer of goods is not an accomplice to every unaffliated retailer whom it fails to make follow the law. Finally, Mexico's allegations about the manufacturers' “de- sign and marketing decisions” add nothing of consequence. Brief for Respondent 23. As noted above, Mexico here fo- cuses on the manufacturers' production of “military style” assault weapons, among which it includes AR–15 rifes, AK– 47 rifes, and .50 caliber sniper rifes. See supra, at 290; App. to Pet. for Cert. 121a. But those products are both widely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers. (The AR– 15 is the most popular rife in the country. See T. Gross, How the AR–15 Became the Bestselling Rife in the U. S., NPR (Apr. 20, 2023).) The manufacturers cannot be charged 298 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Opinion of the Court

with assisting in criminal acts just because Mexican cartel members like those guns too. The same is true of frearms with Spanish-language names or graphics alluding to Mexi- can history. See supra, at 290. Those guns may be “cov- eted by the cartels,” as Mexico alleges; but they also may appeal, as the manufacturers rejoin, to “millions of law-abid- ing Hispanic Americans.” Tr. of Oral Arg 80; Reply Brief 20. That leaves only the allegation that the manufacturers have not attempted to make guns with nondefaceable serial numbers. See supra, at 290. But the failure to improve gun design in that way (which federal law does not require) cannot in the end show that the manufacturers have “join[ed] both mind and hand” with lawbreakers in the way needed to aid and abet. Direct Sales, 319 U. S., at 713.

C All of that means PLCAA prevents Mexico's suit from going forward. The kinds of allegations Mexico makes can- not satisfy the demands of the statute's predicate exception. That exception permits a suit to be brought against a gun manufacturer that has aided and abetted a frearms violation (and in so doing proximately caused the plaintiff's harm). See § 7903(5)(A)(iii); supra, at 286–287. And Mexico's com- plaint, for the reasons given, does not plausibly allege such aiding and abetting. So this suit remains subject to PLCAA's general bar: An action cannot be brought against a manufacturer if, like Mexico's, it is founded on a third-party's criminal use of the company's product. See §§ 7902(a), 7903(5)(A); supra, at 286. And that conclusion, we note, well accords with PLCAA's core purpose. Recall that Congress enacted the statute to halt a furry of lawsuits attempting to make gun manufactur- ers pay for the downstream harms resulting from misuse of their products. See supra, at 285–286. In a “fndings” and “purposes” section, Congress explained that PLCAA was meant to stop those suits—to prevent manufacturers (and Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 299

Thomas, J., concurring

sellers) from being held “liable for the harm caused by those who criminally or unlawfully misuse frearm[s].” § 7901(a)(5). Mexico's suit closely resembles the ones Con- gress had in mind: It seeks to recover from American fre- arms manufacturers for the downstream damage Mexican cartel members wreak with their guns. Of course, the law Congress wrote includes the predicate exception, which allows some suits falling within PLCAA's general ban to pro- ceed. But that exception, if Mexico's suit fell within it, would swallow most of the rule. We doubt Congress in- tended to draft such a capacious way out of PLCAA, and in fact it did not. The predicate exception allows for accom- plice liability only when a plaintiff makes a plausible allega- tion that a gun manufacturer “participate[d] in” a frearms violation “as in something that [it] wishe[d] to bring about” and sought to make succeed. Peoni, 100 F. 2d, at 402. Be- cause Mexico's complaint fails to do so, the defendant manu- facturers retain their PLCAA-granted immunity. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Ap- peals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.

Justice Thomas, concurring. The Court today correctly decides that Mexico has not plausibly pleaded that its suit falls under the predicate ex- ception to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). This exception allows otherwise-prohibited suits against gun manufacturers to go forward if, among other re- quirements, the manufacturer has “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product.” 15 U. S. C. §§ 7902(a), 7903(5)(A)(iii). I write separately to note that the Court's opinion does not resolve what a plaintiff must show to establish that the de- fendant committed a “violation.” § 7903(5)(A)(iii). It con- cludes only that Mexico has not adequately pleaded its the- 300 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Jackson, J., concurring

ory of the case—that, as a factual matter, the defendant gun manufacturers committed criminal aiding and abetting. See ante, at 294–298. In future cases, courts should more fully examine the meaning of “violation” under the PLCAA. It seems to me that the PLCAA at least arguably requires not only a plausi- ble allegation that a defendant has committed a predicate violation, but also an earlier fnding of guilt or liability in an adjudication regarding the “violation.” Allowing plaintiffs to proffer mere allegations of a predicate violation would force many defendants in PLCAA litigation to litigate their criminal guilt in a civil proceeding, without the full panoply of protections that we otherwise afford to criminal defend- ants. And, these defendants might even include ones who were cleared in an earlier proceeding, such as through a non- charging decision or a not-guilty or not-liable verdict. Such collateral adjudication would be at best highly unusual, and would likely raise serious constitutional questions that would counsel in favor of a narrower interpretation. See United States v. Jin Fuey Moy, 241 U. S. 394, 401 (1916) (“A statute must be construed, if fairly possible, so as to avoid not only the conclusion that it is unconstitutional but also grave doubts upon that score”). Particularly given the PLCAA's aim of protecting gun manufacturers from litigation, see § 7901, this issue warrants careful consideration.

Justice Jackson, concurring. The Court holds that Mexico's complaint fails to plausibly allege that gun manufacturers aided or abetted violations of frearms laws, as necessary to trigger the predicate excep- tion to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), 15 U. S. C. § 7903(5)(A)(iii). I agree. I write separately to explain that, in my view, the complaint's core faw is its failure to allege any nonconclusory statutory viola- tions in the frst place. Cite as: 605 U. S. 280 (2025) 301

Jackson, J., concurring

Tellingly, that failure exposes Mexico's lawsuit as precisely what Congress passed PLCAA to prevent. PLCAA was Congress's response to a food of civil lawsuits that sought to hold the frearms industry responsible for downstream law- breaking by third parties. Ante, at 285–287, 298–299. Ac- tivists had deployed litigation in an effort to compel frearms manufacturers and associated entities to adopt safety meas- ures and practices that exceeded what state or federal stat- utes required. H. R. Rep. No. 109–124, pp. 18–20 (2005). Congress expressed concern that these lawsuits “attempt[ed] to use the judicial branch to circumvent the Legislative branch.” § 7901(a)(8). PLCAA embodies Congress's ex- press rejection of such efforts—stymying those who, as Con- gress put it, sought “to accomplish through litigation that which they have been unable to achieve by legislation.” H. R. Rep. No. 109–124, at 18. Put differently, PLCAA re- fects Congress's view that the democratic process, not litiga- tion, should set the terms of gun control. Viewed in light of this objective, Congress's inclusion of the predicate exception makes perfect sense. The exception allows lawsuits to proceed—despite PLCAA's general grant of immunity—if the complaint alleges that a gun manufac- turer or seller “knowingly violated a State or Federal stat- ute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product, and the violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.” § 7903(5)(A)(iii). By tying the exception to statutory violations, Congress kept the door open to civil liability—but only liability fowing from duties that the Peo- ple, rather than the courts, had chosen to impose. PLCAA's predicate exception might well be triggered by aiding and abetting another's violation of a frearms statute, as the provision's two examples make clear. First, § 7903(5) (A)(iii)(I) describes, for example, aiding and abetting “any person in making any false or fctitious oral or written state- ment with respect to any fact material to the lawfulness of 302 SMITH & WESSON BRANDS, INC. v. ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS Jackson, J., concurring

the sale or other disposition of a qualifed product”—conduct that violates 18 U. S. C. §§ 922(m), 923(g), or 924(a)(3)(A). Likewise, § 7903(5)(A)(iii)(II) covers aiding and abetting “any other person to sell or otherwise dispose of a qualifed product, knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe, that the actual buyer of the qualifed product was prohibited from possessing or receiving a frearm or ammunition under” 18 U. S. C. §§ 922(g) and (n)—sales that breach §§ 922(b), (d), or (t)(1), for instance. Critically, both predicate-exception ex- amples relate to the aiding and abetting of particular statu- tory violations. All that Mexico alleges here is that frearms-industry-wide practices—though lawful on their own—facilitated dealers' unspecifed downstream violations. Mexico does not tether its claims to alleged statutory breaches. Ante, at 294. Nor does it identify the dealers who would be the principals for any underlying statutory violations, as the Court observes. Ante, at 295–296, and n. 5. At bottom, then, Mexico merely faults the industry writ large for engaging in practices that legislatures and voters have declined to prohibit. Ante, at 297–298. It is for these reasons that I view Mexico's allegations as insuffcient to satisfy PLCAA's predicate exception, regard- less of whether the business practices described might suffce to establish aiding-and-abetting or other forms of vicarious liability in distinct statutory or common-law contexts. Cf. Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, 598 U. S. 471, 507 (2023) (Jackson, J., concurring). Devoid of nonconclusory allegations about particular statutory violations, Mexico's lawsuit seeks to turn the courts into common-law regulators. But Congress passed PLCAA to preserve the primacy of the political branches—both state and federal—in deciding which duties to impose on the frearms industry. Construing PLCAA's predicate exception to authorize lawsuits like the one Mexico fled here would distort that basic design. Reporter’s Note

The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant punctuation. The following additional edits were made:

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