The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a challenge from the gun industry to a New York law that permits civil suits against firearm manufacturers, wholesalers and dealers for endangering public safety through their sales and distribution practices.
The appeal was filed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association that argued New York’s statute conflicts with federal law. By refusing to hear the case, the justices left intact a lower-court ruling that upheld the statute, which the state describes as a public nuisance law.
A number of firearms companies joined the industry appeal, including Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Beretta, Glock, Sig Sauer and Sturm. The companies sought review after the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sustained the New York measure last year.
What the New York law does
Enacted in 2021 and signed by former Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York’s law requires members of the gun industry to employ reasonable safeguards aimed at preventing gun trafficking, theft and purchases made by so-called "straw purchasers" who acquire firearms on behalf of others. The statute authorizes civil suits brought by state and local officials as well as actions by private individuals.
Legal battleground - preemption and the federal statute
The industry contended the New York law is preempted by a 2005 federal statute, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which generally shields firearms manufacturers and sellers from civil liability when their products are misused in crimes. Under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the trade group argued, federal law supersedes conflicting state measures.
The 2nd Circuit rejected that preemption argument. Circuit Judge Eunice Lee, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, wrote that Congress intended to preserve "at least some causes of action" when a defendant’s knowing violation of federal or state firearms sales and marketing laws was a proximate cause of harm.
In a separate but concurring opinion, Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, agreed that New York’s law is not preempted. Judge Jacobs also criticized state lawmakers, asserting they had "contrived a broad public nuisance statute that applies solely to gun industry members and is enforceable by a mob of public and private actors."
Industry arguments and stakes
The trade group told the Supreme Court that statutes like New York’s could subject industry members to "crushing liability" for crimes in which the companies played no direct role, posing a threat to the licensed and regulated businesses that supply firearms. The association urged Supreme Court review to prevent what it described as an effort by some states to frustrate Second Amendment rights by effectively seeking to bankrupt industry participants through litigation.
It also emphasized the so-called "predicate exception" contained in the federal law, arguing that it limits liability to failures to comply with specific obligations or prohibitions that are within the industry’s control, and that the appellate ruling undermined that protection.
State response and related litigation context
New York defended the appellate court’s decision as consistent with a Supreme Court decision in an unrelated case brought by Mexico, which the state said recognized that the predicate exception allows liability for certain downstream acts of third parties. New York further noted that at least nine states have enacted laws designed to satisfy the predicate exception, and the state urged the high court to allow lawsuits to proceed through the courts rather than to declare the New York measure categorically unconstitutional.
The industry appeal was supported in filings by the National Rifle Association, 24 Republican state attorneys general and several dozen Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The record also notes a separate Supreme Court decision in 2025 in which the high court spared Smith & Wesson from a lawsuit by Mexico alleging the company aided illegal gun trafficking to drug cartels. That ruling is part of the broader litigation landscape referenced by parties on both sides of the New York dispute.
Scope of this appeal
The appeal to the Supreme Court did not hinge on the Constitution’s Second Amendment protections and whether they limit such state laws. Instead, the parties focused on the interaction between state nuisance law and the federal civil-liability shield and on whether New York’s statute falls within the federal law’s predicate exception.
With the Supreme Court declining review, the 2nd Circuit’s ruling stands for now, leaving in place the pathway it endorsed for state and private civil suits under New York’s public nuisance statute against industry members whose practices are alleged to have facilitated trafficking, theft or straw purchasing.