Follow-up: The Curious Case of Mexico v. Guns

#NoMásTráficodeArmas

First page of Mexico’s legal complaint against Arizona gun shops

Last August, I wrote an article about two lawsuits that the Mexican government had brought against firearm distributors and manufacturers in the United States. This is an update on the status of those lawsuits.

Saved by Appeal

The larger of the two cases is a $10 billion USD suit brought by Mexico’s government against firearm manufacturers. Mexico contends that manufacturers such as Smith & Wesson Brands and Sturm, Ruger & Co. are unlawfully facilitating the trafficking of weapons from the U.S. into Mexico through negligent business practices. As I noted in my previous article, this lawsuit was dismissed by a federal court in Boston, and Mexico was appealing that dismissal. Last year, the United States Court Of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed that dismissal and ruled that the lawsuit could proceed.

The U.S. gun manufacturers are of course appealing this new ruling, and that appeal will likely end up in the Supreme Court of the United States. Mexico’s victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals will likely be symbolic, as the U.S. Supreme Court has largely devolved into nothing more than a rubber stamp on ultra-conservative ideology, including the deeply ingrained notion amongst U.S. conservatives that Jesus Christ himself bestowed upon humanity the right to bear arms and gleefully kill one another with them (I’m not sure where in the New Testament Jesus professes to be such a gun nut, but Christian Nationalists and other ultra-conservative mouthpieces assure me it is there somewhere).

Still, it is heartening to see that this suit lives on.

Raising Arizona

The other gun-related suit that Mexico brought against U.S. entities is a suit in the state of Arizona alleging that 5 gun dealers in that state have been illegally engaged in the trafficking of weapons and ammunition to Mexican drug cartels. The gun dealers - Diamondback Shooting Sports Inc, SnG Tactical LLC, Loan Prairie LLC, Ammo A-Z LLC, and Sprague's Sports Inc - sought to dismiss the suit on the grounds that they are protected from prosecution by the United States’ Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). I spoke a bit about this act in my original article, but to catch you up - the PLCAA was enacted in 2005 in order to protect gun manufacturers and distributors from the harmful effects of their products. Since then, the PLCAA has been used to great effect in protecting the gun industry from any liability for the harm their products do when used correctly in the wrong hands.

Last month, however, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez rejected the distributors’ claim that they were protected by the PLCAA. Judge Márquez noted that there were “red flags” that should have been obvious to the gun stores indicating to whom they were selling (criminal gangs) and to what purpose (illegal exportation to Mexico). These red flags were enough to support Mexico’s claim of negligence by these gun shops, thus invalidating the PLCAA protection argument. Mexico’s lawsuit will proceed.

An Appetite for Justice

Mexico’s current administration - and in particular, current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) - doesn’t shy away from pointing a blaming finger directly at the United States on issues such as gun violence and drug smuggling. AMLO rightly points out that there is a dualistic relationship between the U.S. and Mexico with respect to drugs and gun violence and the cartels that traffic in them. Capitalists call this relationship “supply and demand”. For reasons that defy logic, many U.S. lawmakers quickly forget about Capitalism 101 when talking about drug trafficking; they see it as simply a “supply” problem. But they don’t see gun trafficking that way - to them, the problem with guns is a “demand” problem (or, more realistically, a “hey, we can’t help what people choose to do with them” problem). How conservative lawmakers rationalize their failure to understand basic economic forces when bullets or white powder are involved is a question for which answers prove elusive.

Meanwhile, I hope Mexico wins at least one of these lawsuits, and wins big. But that hope is tempered by the fact that any win would almost certainly be appealed to levels that, ultimately, serve at the pleasure of the United States’ formidable gun lobby.