The government of Mexico is suing five U.S. gun sellers in a federal court in Arizona, claiming the businesses are illegally engaging in arms trafficking for cartels in that crime-ravaged country.
The new lawsuit comes after a federal judge in Massachusetts threw out a $10 billion lawsuit on Sept. 30 that Mexico brought against arms makers, including Smith & Wesson, claiming that U.S. companies deliberately undermined that country’s draconian gun laws by making “military-style assault weapons” that found their way to drug cartels and criminals.
The judge in that case found that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) of 2005 “unequivocally bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the acts of individuals using guns for their intended purpose.” The PLCAA was enacted to protect the industry from frivolous lawsuits filed against businesses related to crimes they didn’t commit.
Critics say Mexico is exploiting U.S. laws in an effort to cripple the U.S. firearms industry and weaken the Second Amendment protections enjoyed by Americans.
The lawsuit “is part of a multifaceted strategy to stop the avalanche of guns into Mexico, particularly assault weapons, which equip criminal groups and lead to bloodshed in the country,” the statement reads.
According to Mexico, the five stores targeted are “among the Arizona dealers whose guns are most frequently recovered in Mexico.”
“Defendants choose to sell guns using reckless and unlawful practices, despite the foreseeability—indeed, virtual certainty—that they are thereby helping cause deadly cartel violence across the border,” the legal complaint states. “Defendants engage in these reckless and unlawful actions because it makes them money. This lawsuit intends to hold them accountable, and make them stop.”
The statement from Mexico says that the lawsuit “in no way challenges the Constitutional right of U.S. citizens to bear arms, nor the right of stores to sell their products responsibly and lawfully. The lawsuit addresses a cause shared by both countries, whose citizens suffer from illicit firearms practices.”
Mexico argues that the sellers “do not comply with required safeguards; cause foreseeable damage; use misleading and tendentious advertising; sell guns that are turned into automatic weapons; cause a disturbance of public order, and violate state and federal laws, causing enormous damage in Mexico.”
Larry Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry group, told gun news website The Reload earlier this month that Mexico’s legal efforts against the U.S. firearms industry were “misguided and baseless.”
“The crime that is devastating the people of Mexico is not the fault of members of the firearm industry, that under U.S. law, can only sell their lawful products to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights after passing a background check,” Keane said.
Licensed gun dealers and manufacturers in the United States shouldn’t be held responsible “for Mexico’s unwillingness and inability to bring Mexican drug cartels to justice in Mexican courtrooms,” he said.
