When the responses came in, Alejandro was not surprised. In August, a group of lawyers led by a top legal adviser in Mexico filed a historic lawsuit against some of the United States' most well-known gun companies, accusing them of negligently selling firearms on a mass scale. The unprecedented litigation aimed to succeed where gun violence victims north of the border are all but guaranteed to fail, asking a Massachusetts federal court to hold 10 U.S.-based companies accountable for their products.
The Mexican lawyer-diplomat found that the companies had done exactly as he expected, and that a 2005 law that the National Rifle Association considers one of its greatest legislative achievements, gave them broad immunity. They argued that it extends all the way to Mexico. The companies message was simple: we don't care what we do. We don't care if other people don't like it. We will continue to do it.
Theil of impunity was expected. He was interested in a potential seepage of politics into what Mexico insists is a political legal challenge. Smith & Wesson, Colt's Manufacturing Company, and Glock are among the companies accused in Mexico's complaint. Jones Day, one of the largest law firms in the world, which represented President Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, argued in a joint filing that the case implicates a clash.
According to The Intercept, they believe that they are going to try to politicize this. They are increasing the political cost to the judge to rule in favor of Mexico. They are saying that you are an American. If you allow this litigation to go on, you will not hold dear to the American values.
They are saying that you are an American. If you allow this litigation to go on, you will not hold dear to the American values.
The story of Mexico's lawsuit against U.S. gun companies is unfolding on multiple levels at once. President Joe Biden urged Congress to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, orPLCAA, in order to prevent gun violence in the US, but the litigation tests whether legal protections in the act extend to foreign countries. It would be a historic blow to U.S. gun manufacturers if the challenge succeeds. The U.S.-based small arms industry has been given a near-impermeable shield by the PLCAA. The law is important for the gun companies. The victims of the Aurora, Colorado, theater massacre who were ordered to pay $203,000 to an ammunition dealer after losing a lawsuit is an example of gun company impunity.
A young girl joins gun reform advocates at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.
The photo was taken by Win McNamee.
There is a legal fight taking place against the backdrop of a historical moment in the U.S.-Mexico security relationship. Two important events took place after the passing of the PLCAA. The federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004. In 2006 the Mexican government announced the deployment of the military into the streets to fight drug traffickers. The Bush administration threw its support behind the campaign with a multimillion dollar security aid package known as the Mérida Initiative, beginning an era of unprecedentedly close binational collaboration in the drug war.
The stream of military-grade weaponry flowing into Mexico became a river of iron after the declaration of war to the south. In the past decade and a half, Mexico has seen its worst period of violence since its revolution more than a century ago, with more than 400,000 people killed and paramilitary-style criminal groups building U.S.-sourced weapons arsenals capable of causing significant damage to government forces. According to Mexico, an estimated 500,000 U.S.-made firearms are illegally smuggled over the border into the country each year, with just one legal gun shop and some of the strictest gun laws in the Western Hemisphere.
There are at least 10 million guns in Mexico that shouldn't be here because we don't sell them in Mexico. He said that criminal organizations have a certain degree of impunity because they have a lot of power.
The Mexican President, known as the "AMLO", came into office in the fall of 2018, promising to reverse the militarization of his predecessors. He replaced the drug war with a suite of social initiatives aimed at directing young people away from crime while rolling back the military's presence in the streets. Some Lpez Obrador critics say that the president ignores a public safety threat and that the military's role in the public security is questionable. The relationship between the US and Mexico came to a head in 2020 when the former head of the Mexican army was arrested on drug charges. Lpez Obrador passed a law limiting U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operations in Mexico. The heads of the departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security met with their Mexican counterparts to hammer out a new bilateral security framework after Mexican foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard announced that the Mérida Initiative was dead.
The director for Mexico and Migrant Rights at the Washington Office on Latin America told The Intercept that both sides are tailoring their messaging to what they want to pressure on. Brewer argues that the Biden administration focuses on stopping migration to the north. The disproportionate weight and direction of the U.S. immigration policies is the major challenge facing U.S.-Mexico security cooperation and relations more broadly.
Brewer believes that the steady flow of weapons south has suffered because of the focus on migration. The new framework for security, public health, and safe communities in the two countries does touch on arms trafficking, but there is no change in approach. Brewer is not sure if the Mexican government's legal challenge will bring about official change because of the enormous power of the U.S. gun lobby and the protections in law granted to gun companies. The gun lawsuit is relevant and powerful. Its impact might be symbolic rather than legal.
The Mexican legal complaint makes it clear that the targets are private entities that are negligent in their business practices. The case is a tort law case. The litigation is part of a larger effort to change the country's relationship with Washington on matters of violence and security. On November 22, Ebrard appeared before the U.N. Security Council to present a proposal for an international strategy to combat small arms trafficking. The proposal was connected to the lawsuit by the foreign minister.
The Mexican government would never try to change domestic law in the US. We are dying. We can't wait until things happen. That is the reason we are resorting to other actions.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs for Mexico is seen during a press encounter in the East Foyer of the United Nations Headquarters.
The photo was taken by Albin Lohr-Jones of the Pacific Press.
On August 3, 2015, a man walked into a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and killed 23 people and wounded 23 others.
Mexican nationals were the victims. Many of the others were Mexican American. The youngest victim was 2 years old. The oldest person was older than 80. The people of Mexican descent in the Texas borderlands have not been the target of a terror attack since the early 1900s. The man who is accused of shooting and killing a Mexican man in Allen, Texas, bought his gun online and drove all night from his home in Texas to avenge his plan to kill Mexicans.
Facing 90 federal charges, including 45 for hate crimes, Crusius pleaded not guilty. A trial date has not been set.
When the news broke, he was in Mexico City, having just returned from a five-year posting at Mexico's embassy in Washington, D.C., where he was section head of Hispanic and Migration Affairs. El Paso could be the beginning of something worse according to career officials in the government. In August, remember where we were in terms of white nationalism and white supremacism. He called on others to grab their own weapons and stop the invasion, so we thought there would be copycats.
Ebrard asked Celorio to find a way to hold the shooter accountable. He encouraged his legal adviser to be innovative. After arriving in El Paso, he spent days meeting with prosecutors and speaking with survivors. He contacted Jonathan Lowy, the chief counsel and vice president of legal at Brady Legal, the litigation arm of the Brady Campaign, the country's most prominent gun control organization. Steve Shadowen is a Texas-based civil rights attorney who has been involved in litigation involving Border Patrol agents fatally shooting Mexicans across the border. Shadowen and Lowy are now co-counsels in the suit.
The lawyers talked about what Mexico wanted to do with El Paso. The fact that someone inspired by white nationalism could so easily acquire the means to bring their murders to life was a part of the motivation. The city of El Paso, Walmart, and the city of Crusius could be sued. The problem was legal standing. He said that the government of Mexico wasn't there. It is difficult to represent all Mexicans.
The government widened its approach to the gun issue after the El Paso attack.
Mexican security forces arrested the son of the notorious Joaqun Guzmn Lopez in Culiacn on October 17th under heavy Trump administration pressure.
Black Thursday was a day when a criminal network with financial power from U.S. customers used U.S.-made weapons to attack a state capital and derail a U.S.-based effort to extradite them.
It was called "Jueves Negro" in local memory. Hundreds of people who were drawn by social media calls for paid volunteers and then armed with guns, responded with a swift counteroffensive. They arrived in the capital in armored vehicles with machine guns. They cut off entry and exit points into the city, staged a successful escape, burned vehicles and homes, and then surrounded a housing complex for the families of Mexican soldiers, taking the wives and children inside hostage while they demanded Guzmn's release. The video showed parents hiding behind cars with small children while gunfire rang out, and civilians taking refuge in restaurant kitchens. The scene at which the companies that would become defendants in Mexico's gun lawsuit were observed included Colt's AR-15 platforms, Beretta and Glock handguns, and the anti-material sniper rifle. The Mexican military ended operations in the city at the end of the day. Fourteen people were dead. Culiacn citizens were left to pick up the pieces after a traumatic event.
There are armed men in a street of Culiacan, Mexico, on October 17, 2019.
The photo was taken by STR/AFP
The criminal network whose financial power is derived from U.S. customers used U.S.-made weapons to intimidate a state capital and impede a U.S.-based effort to extradite them. Other events followed. On November 4, a three-vehicle convoy was attacked on a desert highway in the Mexican state of Sonora. The attackers disabled the vehicles with a lot of gunfire and then set them on fire. Three women and six children were members of a Mormon community that has lived in the area for years. The El Paso attack was a kind of grim reversal of the attack in Mexico, with Americans now killed on Mexican soil. The spectacle of extraordinary violence landed on the doorstep of the country's most powerful officials eight months later. The head of Mexico City's police was attacked by an estimated 50 attackers carrying assault rifles,.50 caliber sniper rifles, and grenade launchers as he was driven through the capital. The vehicle was shot more than 400 times. Two of his bodyguards were killed. Harfuch was shot three times.
The events in Sonora and Mexico City made it clear that the phenomenon Mexico hoped to address was bigger than El Paso. He said that the common factor in all of them was the firepower. Mexico has been living through gun violence for a long time, with the key difference being that the guns fueling the violence are the illegal product of cross-border trade.
Attendees handle.50 caliber sniper rifles on the exhibit floor during the National Rifle Association annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky.
The photo was taken by Luke Sharrett.
With Ebrard's support, Celorio began coordinating a legal strategy that would target the flow at its source. His team studied gun violence and the trade in weapons in Mexico. Most of the guns recovered at crime scenes in the country are made in the U.S., with six manufacturers producing firearms that turn up most often. According to the Mexico complaint filed in August, between 342,000 and 597,000 guns are smuggled into the country every year.
The legal team observed that the.50 caliber sniper rifles ofBarrett stand out as both a tactical asset and a status symbol in the drug war. The helicopter of the state attorney general was shot down in Michoacn in 2016 and the pilot and three officers on board were killed. The government alleged that the dealers of military guns inBarrett sell them to traffickers in bulk to arm the Mexican military and police who are trying to stop the drug trade. The company's.50 caliber rifles were recovered by the Mexican soldiers.
There were other people who appealed to organized crime. Mexico told the court that Colt's guns turned up at more crime scenes than any other manufacturer's weapons, with more than 2,000 weapons recovered between 2006 and 2019. The government pointed to three.38 caliber pistols that were specifically marketed to Mexican buyers as proof that Colt did not try to hide its pandering to the criminal market in Mexico. A pistol named after the Mexican revolutionary was used to kill a Mexican investigative journalist in 2017, making Mexico the most dangerous country in the world.
The Mexican government argued that the 2004 expiration of the assault weapons ban in the U.S. altered life for the worse. Murders in the country were on the decline prior to the expiration. The defendants increased their production and distribution of military-grade weapons after the ban expired. The complaint said that border-state gun dealers sell more guns than dealers in other areas of the country. In the years immediately following the expiration, illegal gun ownership per capita in Mexico increased tenfold and the homicide rate increased by 45 percent, according to the government. There were less than 2,500 homicides in Mexico in 2003 with a gun. There were more than 23,000 by 2019.
The life expectancy of Mexicans decreased from 2005 to 2010 because of the large number of deaths. Mexico is home to the third most gun-related deaths in the world, and even though the country has less than half the population of the U.S., a Mexican is more likely to be killed with a U.S.-made gun than a U.S. Murder is the leading cause of death among Mexican teenagers and young adults, and last year more than 40 percent of Mexicans under the age of 18 reported frequently seeing or hearing gunfire. The Institute for Economics and Peace, an international think tank, said that the financial impact of the violence in Mexico was more than 20 percent of the country's gross domestic product.
Mexico claims that the gun companies could make changes to their business practices to help stem the violence, but they chose not to because they wanted to make money.
The government of Mexico claims that the gun companies could make changes to their business practices to stem the violence. As part of its legal challenge, Mexico wants to know what gun manufacturers are doing to limit the flow of their products into criminal hands. Thanks to the 2003 Tiahrt Amendment, the gun industry has been able to keep the records of tracing products from the public.
Mexico believes that the law is irrelevant in the case. The government said in its complaint that the Supreme Court has held that the local law of the state where the injury occurred determines the rights and liability of the parties. The U.S. Constitution and statutes allow foreign governments to bring lawsuits against U.S. corporations for violating their own laws. Mexican law applies because of the harms that happened in Mexico. Mexico argued that the legislation was passed to address harms on U.S. soil alone, and that it was irrelevant.
The Mexican government argued that Mexico has the right to balance the interests of the gun industry and the rights of victims within its jurisdiction. It is not as though the companies live on another planet in which they are protected from the news of their corrupt dealers, the trafficking of their guns into Mexico, and the devastating damage suffered by the government and its people. They act as if they are blind to the facts.
Mexico argued that by increasing the production of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, marketing to criminals, and using distribution networks known to feed into their armories, the gun manufacturers have made a deliberate choice to maintain their supply chain to the cartels. The companies refuse to reform because their distribution systems are huge successes, the government alleged. The supply of guns to the criminal market in Mexico is a feature.
A sign with the slogan "Ban assault weapons now" is displayed near a voter registration table at a protest against President Trump's visit, following a mass shooting that left at least 22 people dead in El Paso, Texas, on August 7, 2019.
The photo was taken by Mario Tama.
Steve Shadowen, the Texas-based co-counsel, was feeling confident after Mexico filed suit. Shadowen told The Intercept in September that the case was rock solid.
Shadowen, a tort law expert, believes the defendants have the wrong scope for the lawsuit. Mexico does not have a statute like the U.S. does. He said that it has tort law. We will show that the Mexican law says that Mexico should be able to recover. The law of Mexico does not reflect the social policy of the world, and the PLCAA statute is an outlier.
The veteran attorney predicted that his team would have a fight over the legislation. The gun companies filed a motion for dismissal last month, which indicates he was correct.
Mexico is trying to shift the blame for its own drug violence, according to the companies. They said that the Mexican government wants all firearms out of the country. It would take time, resources, and political will to take responsibility for a massive social problem if the necessary steps were not taken. The companies said that Mexico is trying to circumvent an ongoing diplomatic dispute by appealing to the courts. They argued that by seeking to bankrupt U.S. gun makers, this gambit threatens America's constitutional freedoms, and also the careful balance of firearms regulations set by Congress and state legislatures. The court needs not play along.
Mexico relied on anattenuated chain of events to prove its case, which included violence in the streets, the production of guns, and the sale of guns to straw buyers. The Mexican government could not prove all of the steps, but the defendants would still be protected from liability. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was enacted in 2005 to prohibit precisely the type of claims asserted in this case. Even if the companies knew that some weapons would be sold to dealers who would then sell them to criminals, they were still protected.
The companies argued that if Mexico won, it would open a hole in the protections that the PLCAA was designed to provide.
Mexico appears to be convincing the Court that the PLCAA does not apply to protect U.S. firearms companies against foreign lawsuits. They said the claim had no merit, and that all suits brought in U.S. courts against U.S. defendants for conduct in the U.S., regardless of where the alleged harms occurred, are covered by the PLCAA. The companies argued that if Mexico won, it would open a hole in the protections of the law.
The history of firearms law in the United States is a constant evolution of legislation and regulation to protect Americans constitutional rights while also protecting people from a potentially dangerous product, and the Court should not allow that to be upended by a lawsuit filed by a foreign power. Under the principles of international law, a foreign nation cannot use its own law to reach across borders and impose liability on another country that was lawful when it occurred there. Mexico is trying to impose its own gun control policies on the U.S. firearms industry in disregard of the choices made by domestic legislatures and embedded in the federal and many state constitutions.
The National Rifle Association's chief executive officer, Wayne LaPierre, spoke at the organization's annual meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, on April 27, 2019.
The photo was taken by Daniel Acker.
The gun company immunity that Mexico is facing can be traced to a man with deep ties to the border. Harlon Carter followed in the footsteps of his father into the U.S. Border Patrol, eventually becoming chief and overseeing one of the largest deportation operations in U.S. history. Carter joined the board of directors of the National Rifle Association in 1951. Marksmanship education and supporting hunting and sport shooting were the primary objectives of the NRA at the time. Carter would change that.
Carter was the president of the NRA. He became the NRA's chief lobbyist after securing a lifetime position on the organization's executive council. There was a disagreement among members who supported the group's original mission and those who wanted to focus on militant gun control. Carter was a big supporter of the latter. He wrote a letter to the leadership of the organization. No compromises. There is no gun legislation.
Carter and his supporters took control of the NRA at an annual meeting in Ohio in 1977. The former Border Patrol chief became the ethos of the NRA. When the New York Times reported that he was convicted of murdering a Mexican boy 50 years prior, his relationship to firearms was fully illuminated. Ramn was the victim. In 1931, a 17-year-old Carter confronted a group of people with a shotgun. Carter's mother suspected the boys had information about the theft of the family's car. Carter ordered them to come with him. The boys refused. A pocketknife was pulled out by the man. Carter asked if he believed he wouldn't shoot. He said he wouldn't. Carter pulled the gun. Carter was sentenced to three years in prison for murder. Two years later, the case was thrown out after the court ruled that the jury had been given incorrect instructions.
LaPierre had a piece of legislation that was a tribute to Carter.
Carter died in 1991, but his legacy lives on. The same year, Wayne LaPierre became the executive vice president of the NRA. During the 1977 leadership coup of the National Rifle Association, LaPierre was firmly in Carter's camp and later took over his old job as the organization's chief lobbyist. Two days after Carter died, LaPierre praised his predecessor as a warrior. LaPierre had a piece of legislation that was a tribute to Carter's legacy. The New York Times quoted LaPierre as saying that it was the most significant victory for the gun lobby in nearly 50 years.
LaPierre developed a line in the mid-2000s that said, "Our rights are not what's wrong", in response to criticisms that the U.S. gun policy might have some relationship to the violence in Mexico.
The Mexican ambassador to the U.S. at the time was Arturo Sarukhn. When I was ambassador, I sent a letter to Wayne LaPierre saying I was not going to challenge the Second Amendment. That is a decision of the American people. The Second Amendment is in the Constitution, but I believe it was not written to allow Americans to buy armor piercing ammo to hunt deer or to traffic guns across an international border. Why don't we talk? In an interview with The Intercept, Sarukhn recalled. LaPierre never responded to the letter. They did not pick up the call.
The expiration of the assault weapons ban contributed to a rise in homicides in Mexican border communities, according to a 2012 paper. The University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute estimated that 47 percent of federally licensed firearms dealers would cease to exist without gun traffickers in Mexico. The relationship between weapons, violence, and money was obvious to Sarukhn. The sunset clause of the assault weapons ban coincides with the growth of seizures of assault weapons and semi-automatic weapons in Mexico. There is a direct correlation. It was another matter to do something about the issue. There won't be an assault weapons ban in Washington anytime soon. The former Mexican ambassador is correct. The prospect of Congress passing gun control legislation is unlikely, despite Biden's renewed calls for an assault weapons ban.
A critic of the security policies of the administration. He said that Lpez Obrador'shugs and bullets are creating more homicides than the war against drugs. By pushing away the U.S. involvement in shared problems, Mexico hurts itself. He supports the government's lawsuit despite his criticisms of the administration's posture. He pursued a similar project as ambassador but ran out of time before the changing of administrations. The Mexican government does a good job of doing this. It is an important shot across the bow.
There are significant holes in the government's system for stopping the flow of weapons south according to a report to Congress. The Government Accountability Office told lawmakers that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the State Department fail to stop cross-border traffickers.
The report said that none of the agencies have developed performance measures for their efforts to disrupt firearms traffickers.
After working as the ATF's country attache in Mexico for two tours, he retired in 2016 and had an up- close look at U.S. efforts to curb the flow of guns south. While he pushed back on some depictions of the impact U.S. gun policy has had on the country, he believes the expiration of the assault weapons ban had little relationship to violence.
In Mexico, U.S. federal agents are encouraged to work closely with their partners because they lack the sweeping authorities they enjoy in the US. When you work hand in hand, you worry about corruption and information going the wrong way. He pointed to the case of Genaro Garca Luna, the former Mexican public security chief who was once considered the greatest drug war ally of the US.
The biggest problems are not on the border, but in Washington. In a move straight out of the Harlon Carter playbook, the NRA has waged a multidecade campaign to undermine the ATF, which LaPierre once referred to as "jack-booted government thugs." The agency hasn't had a confirmed director in years. David Chipman, who was appointed by Biden to head the organization, faced heated Republican opposition in a Senate hearing earlier this year. The absence of leadership has had a devastating impact on the way people think.
He said it was a political animal. All the people in ATF want to do the right thing, but they can't even get a director confirmed because of politics. It is insane.
A cache of seized weapons that were to be smuggled into Mexico is displayed in Phoenix, AZ.
Photo by Matt York.
Ieva Jusionyte, an associate professor of international security and anthropology at Brown University, has spent years studying gun trafficking to Mexico at the ground level, spending her days with Mexican purchasers of illegal U.S.-made weapons, observing Mexican government gun programs in action, and interviewing rank
She argued that understanding the U.S. and Mexico as two separate countries with their own laws obscures the ways in which those laws inform conditions on the ground. Jusionyte said that rising violence in Latin America is a big market for U.S. gun companies. They sell the guns to the police forces and security forces and then they allow their guns to illegally supply those organized crime groups that security forces fight against. It is a big win for gunmakers.
One of the great ironies of Mexico's lawsuit is that one arm of the Mexican government is attempting to bankrupt the U.S. gun industry, while another is feeding it millions of dollars a year.
There is a political economy of violence where different laws on both sides create opportunities for criminal activities that increase violence.
The Mexican military has become one of the biggest buyers of U.S.-made weapons in the world. The Mexican military has become the largest buyer of U.S.-made arms in Latin America, thanks to legal U.S. guns and ammo exports. As sales have gone up, some U.S. lawmakers have become more concerned about the flow of U.S.-made guns to Mexican security forces with questionable human rights records. The police in the city of Iguala were implicated in the disappearance of 43 college students, and they received scores of Colt rifles before and after.
The effect Mexico's lawsuit will have on the multimillion-dollar exchanges between the military and U.S. gun companies remains to be seen. Three companies that are being sued by Mexico have sold weapons to the Mexican military in the past. The office has received no resistance from its military colleagues.
The largest deployment of troops in the streets in recent history is being presided over by the AMLO administration despite its stated commitment to demilitarizing Mexico. The continued reliance on the military in public security has drawn criticism from human rights advocates. The critiques are something that Celorio is aware of. He argued that the criminal gangs needed to decrease their firepower to draw down the military's presence in the streets.
There is a spiral of violence because of the illegal traffic of guns. He said that they always talk about how Saudi Arabia shouldn't divert their weapons to Yemen. What is happening in the stores in Laredo?
Those who doubt the sincerity of Mexico's current efforts are mistaken. He said that they were doing this for real. He argued that the litigation was evidence of a changing Mexico. Mexico believes in itself, that it is no less than any other country, and that it will defend itself if necessary. That is a Mexico that is changing.
