2. This case involves a domestic application of the PLCAA

65, 77 n.8 (2014). In Rosemond, the Court specifically questioned whether there are “any” facts

that “would suffice to show” criminal “intent” in the case of a “gun store” that “sells a

firearm . . . knowing but not caring” that the buyer will use it in a crime. Id. Whatever the answer

to that may be, defendants in this case are even further removed from liability: Mexico does not

allege that any defendant ever sold a firearm to any buyer that it knew would commit a crime.

Fourth, Mexico tries to advance a similar theory, Compl. ¶ 208, based on Direct Sales

Co. v. United States, 319 U.S. 703 (1943), but that case is entirely inapposite. In Direct Sales, the

defendant company was convicted of criminal conspiracy for selling morphine to a specific

private doctor “in such quantities, so frequently and over so long a period [that] it must have

known he could not dispense the amounts received in lawful practice and was therefore

distributing the drug illegally.” Id. at 705. The Court emphasized that the defendant violated

federal law only because it had “more than knowledge, acquiescence, carelessness, indifference,

[or] lack of concern” about the doctor’s unlawful distribution of morphine. Id. at 713. Here, by

contrast, there is no allegation that defendants sold firearms to any particular buyer in such

quantities that the buyer could only be reselling them in illegal transactions. After all, Mexico

itself alleges that only 2.2% of firearms manufactured and sold in the United States are illegally

trafficked in Mexico. Compl. ¶ 437. And even if defendants were aware that some of their

firearms might be resold to dealers who might then unwittingly or illegally resell them to straw

purchasers, that does not make the defendants guilty of conspiracy or aiding and abetting. That is

why Budweiser is not liable just because it knows that some of its products will be unlawfully

sold to minors or consumed by drunk drivers. This is precisely the type of situation where Direct

Sales recognized that federal liability is lacking, because even if “the evidence of knowledge

[about some future unlawful sales] is clear, yet the further step of finding the required intent

cannot be taken.” 319 U.S. at 712.

Finally, Mexico claims that defendants violated (or aided and abetted the violation of)

various Mexican statutes. Compl. ¶¶ 55-64. But even putting aside the lack of any factual

allegations supporting this claim, the PLCAA’s predicate exception does not allow claims based

on Mexican statutes, since it allows certain claims based only on “State or Federal statute[s].” 15

U.S.C. § 7903(5)(A). The PLCAA’s predicate exception applies only to knowing violations of

U.S. firearms statutes.

c) The predicate exception does not allow claims based on generally applicable consumer-protection statutes.

With respect to its consumer-protection claims under Chapter 93A and the CUTPA

(Counts Seven and Eight), Mexico may seek to rely on Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms

International, LLC, 202 A.3d 262, 325 (Conn. 2019), in which the Connecticut Supreme Court

let stand a claim against gun manufacturers under CUTPA. The court in Soto was willing to

“assume” 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.” Id. at 311-12. But, nevertheless, the court held that the

predicate exception was satisfied by a CUTPA “wrongful marketing claim” alleging that “one

specific family of firearms sellers advertised one particular line of assault weapons in a uniquely

unscrupulous manner, promoting their suitability for illegal, offensive assaults.” Id. at 312.

Soto’s attempt to find a middle-ground reading of the predicate exception is indefensible

as a textual matter. As noted above, the phrase “applicable to the sale or marketing of firearms”

can be interpreted in only one of two ways: broadly, to refer to any law that is “[c]apable of

being applied” to firearms sales or marketing, or narrowly, to cover only those laws that

specifically apply to firearms sales or marketing in particular. Applicable, BLACK’S LAW

DICTIONARY, supra. When the phrase is read in context, the narrow meaning is the correct one

for the reasons already explained. But if the narrow reading is rejected, there is no logical basis