D. The PLCAA Applies to Claims by Foreign Governments

and there is an overwhelming judicial consensus that these types of general claims do not satisfy

the predicate exception.6

The only claim in Mexico’s complaint that even mentions any potentially relevant

statutory violation is the “negligence per se” claim (Count Four), which asserts in vague and

conclusory terms that “Defendants violated statutory duties.” Compl. ¶ 524. But as explained

further below, the PLCAA contains a separate exception for claims of “negligence per se,” which

is not satisfied here. In any event, while the complaint mentions various firearms-specific

statutes, an analysis of each of these assertions shows that the complaint fails to state a plausible

claim that defendants violated any of them.

First, the complaint asserts that four defendants violated the federal ban on selling fully

automatic “machine guns” by selling semi-automatic “AR-15 style weapons” and an “AK-47

style weapon” to the general public. Compl. ¶¶ 307-13. But the federal machinegun ban, 18

U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(B), applies only to fully automatic weapons—i.e., those that “shoot[], [are]

designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without

manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger,” 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b). The complaint

admits that the firearms sold by defendants are semi-automatic, not fully automatic, but claims

that they are still “machinegun[s]” because they could be made fully automatic through the

unlawful “modification or elimination of existing component parts.” Compl. ¶ 308. That is

wrong as a matter of law. Section 5845(b) unambiguously defines a “machinegun” as a fully

automatic firearm that was originally designed to fire more than one shot with a single trigger

pull, or can be restored to fire fully automatic as it was originally designed to function. Thus, the

Supreme Court has recognized that a commonplace semi-automatic rifle such as the AR-15 is,

6 See, e.g., Ileto, 565 F.3d at 1135-37; City of New York, 524 F.3d at 403; Phillips, 84 F. Supp. 3d at 1223; Jefferies, 916 F. Supp. 2d at 46; Kim, 295 P.3d at 386; Delana v. CED Sales, Inc., 486 S.W.3d 316, 321 (Mo. 2016); accord Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms Int’l, LLC, 202 A.3d 262, 311, 325 (Conn. 2019) (“We will assume, without deciding, that . . . the predicate exception cannot be so expansive as to fully encompass laws such as public nuisance statutes insofar as those laws reasonably might be implicated in any civil action arising from gun violence.”).