Amid a stunning 168 mass shootings in 2023, including a school shooting in Nashville that left six people dead (including three children) and seven mass shooting incidents in one April weekend alone, U.S. gun violence, and the politics surrounding it, have led to widespread public uproar. Yet a recent major gun lawsuit brought by the Mexican government against U.S. gun manufacturers has gone largely unnoticed.
The suit was filed in federal court in Massachusetts by the Mexican government against six U.S. gun makers and a wholesaler. Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson charges that these companies violated U.S. laws by designing, marketing, selling and knowingly facilitating the unlawful trafficking of guns to drug cartels and other criminals in Mexico. This gun trade, the lawsuit argues, has contributed to enormous increases in gun homicides across the border. The suit was denied by the first court, but on March 21 an appeal was filed in the first circuit court of appeals, with an amicus brief by sixteen states and the District of Columbia. Win or lose, it’s an eye opener.
The complaint focuses on how the companies’ unlawful conduct has substantially reduced the life expectancy of Mexican citizens and has cost the Mexican government billions of dollars a year—including, in 2019, the direct costs to the injured, and the indirect physical, psychological and business costs from the 3.9 million crimes committed in Mexico that year with guns originating in the United States. Armed with the defendant companies’ guns, the complaint argues, “the cartels have aggressively marketed drugs such as fentanyl, destroying and ending lives in and outside of Mexico, including in the U.S.”
Mexico now suffers one of the highest civilian rates of gun death in the world. The former top lawyer with the Brady Project, Jon Lowy, and two other U.S. lawyers are helping Mexico with its case. Lowy recently published an op-ed in The Washington Post pointing out that “70 to 90 percent of Mexican drug cartels’ guns are trafficked from U.S. gun stores, supplied by U.S. manufacturers and distributors” and that, according to recent reports, Trump is preparing a plan to attack Mexico if he becomes president.
The complaint also says that companies design and market military-style weapons desired by ruthless transnational criminal organizations, such as drug cartels. Hence, between December 2006 and August 2010, the top U.S.-sourced guns recovered in Mexico were the AK-47 and AR-15, comprising 50,000 of the total 85,000. What’s more, the U.S. government and courts have explicitly told the gun companies how to prevent this illegal trade.
They can, for example, limit sales at gun shows; limit multiple handgun sales; stop selling ammunition magazines that are able to accept more than ten rounds; train the dealers who sell their guns how to spot straw purchasers who are buying for someone else; monitor their dealers with visits and other regular interactions. Even gun industry insiders have complained about how many gun companies market their guns. But the defendants have ignored them.
Clearly, the flood of guns into Mexico must be stopped. This lawsuit may be a big step toward that goal. If successful, it could help contribute to the safety and well-being of our neighbors to the south, as well as people in the United States. If this lawsuit is not successful, it will show us what we need to change in this country.
This column was produced for The Progressive magazine and distributed by Tribune News Service.