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The United States Supreme Court has blocked a $10 billion lawsuit filed by the Mexican government claiming U.S. firearm manufacturers are responsible for the out-of-control cartel violence and bloodshed that has ravaged the country.

The lawsuit was filed in 2021 against 11 companieswith Smith & Wessonappealing a lower court decision that had allowed the case to proceed.

The unanimous ruling tossed out the case under U.S. laws that largely protect gunmakers from liability when their firearms are used incrime.

The court found that Mexico had not shown that the companies had knowingly allowed weapons to be trafficked across the US’s southern border.

‘It does not pinpoint, as most aiding-and-abetting claims do, any specific criminal transactions that the defendants (allegedly) assisted,’ Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the court’s opinion.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has yet to comment on the landmark decision about the case, which her government had wanted toproceedunder an exception for situations in which the companies themselves are accused of violating the law.

Mexico had said the case was still in its early stages and wanted the lawsuit to continue againstsome of the US’s biggest gun companies, including Beretta USA, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Colt’s Manufacturing Co. and Glock Inc.

Mexico has strict gun laws andjust one store where people can legally buy firearms. But thousands of guns are smuggled in by the country´s powerful drug cartels every year.

Some of the weapons (pictured) that were used in the June 2020 failed plot to kill Mexico City’ police chief Omar García Harfuch were smuggled from the United States

The nine Supreme Court justices all voted toblocked the Mexican government’s $10 billion lawsuit claiming U.S. firearm manufacturers are responsible for the bloodshed in a notoriously violent country

The Mexican government says at least 70% of those weapons come from the United States and claims that companies knew weapons were being sold to traffickers who smuggled them into Mexico and decided to cash in on that market.

It has alleged that more than 500,000 guns are smuggled annuallyfrom the United States into Mexico and that more than 68 percent are produced by the gun manufacturing companies it sued.

Weapons manufactured by the 11 Massachusetts-based gun makers were allegedly used in at least 17,000 homicides in 2019.

‘They know how criminals are getting their guns,’ Jonathan Lowy, a lawyer for Mexico, argued during virtual hearing in April 2022. ‘They could stop and they choose to be willfully blind to the facts.

Mexican security forces confiscated a semi-automatic Barrett M82A1 .50 caliber rifle during a raid in July 2022 in Mexico City that led to the arrest of 14 alleged members of Los Chapitos, the Sinaloa Cartel faction that is operated by the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán.

The Barrett M82A1 .50 caliber rifle (circled), American-made sniper rifle that can shoot between 400 to 600 bullets per minute, was among the high-powered arsenal that was recovered by Mexican authorities following a war-like battle with an armed wing of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico City that left two police officers wounded in July 2022

President Donald Trump stands before greeting Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz before his arrival at the White House on Thursday

The same rifle abandoned by Jalisco New Generation Cartel membersin the failed assassination of Mexico City police chief Omar García Harfuch on June 26, 2020.

The companies have rejected Mexico’s allegations, arguing the country’s lawsuit comes nowhere close to showing they’re responsible for a relatively few people using their products to commit violence.

A federal judge tossed out the lawsuit under a 2005 law that protects gun companies from most civil lawsuits, but an appeals court revived it.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston found it fell under an exception to the shield law for situations in which firearm companies are accused of knowingly breaking laws in their business practices.

‘It does not pinpoint, as most aiding-and-abetting claims do, any specific criminal transactions that the defendants (allegedly) assisted,’ Justice Elena Kagan wrote after the Supreme Court unanimously voted to block the Mexico’s $10 billion lawsuit against a group of U.S. gunmakers

The Supreme Court voted unanimously on Thursday to block a $10 billion lawsuit present by the Mexican government against 11 gunmakers

That exception has come up in other cases, including in lawsuits stemming from mass shootings.

Families of victims of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, for example, argued it applied to their lawsuit because the gunmaker had violated state law in the marketing of the AR-15 rifle used in the shooting, in which 20 first graders and six educators were killed.

The families eventually secured a landmark $73 million settlement with Remington, the maker of the rifle.