Mexico’s $10 billion lawsuit against eight American gun manufacturers hit a major snag last week. A federal judge tossed most of the case out. Mexico’s attorneys argue that eight Massachusetts gunmakers are responsible for all the cartel violence taking place in their country. US District Judge Dennis Saylor said Mexico had failed to produce any evidence that six of the eight manufacturers’ firearms were being used by the cartels.
The second that Donald Trump left office in January of 2021, the whole world realized that it could once again push America around and rip us off. Everyone knows that Joe Biden is weak, and he wouldn’t retaliate to defend American companies. That’s why the first thing that Mexico did when Biden was installed in the White House was launch this lawsuit.
Trump never would have let this happen, and Mexico knows it. He’d have slapped them with painful tariffs and sanctions until they dropped the lawsuit and ran away in shame. There’s no way that President Trump would have let any foreign country try to loot $10 billion from American companies.
What’s Joe Biden going to do? Have his Secretary of State Tony Blinken send Mexico a strongly worded letter? Knowing the Biden regime as well as we do now, he probably had Merrick Garland send some Department of Justice lawyers to help the Mexican government with the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims that 500,000 American-made guns are being illegally trafficked to Mexico every year. The Mexican government says that 68% of those guns originate in Massachusetts. The companies that it is trying to sue for $10 billion include Sturm Ruger, Barrett Firearms, Glock, Colt, Century International Arms, Beretta U.S.A., Smith & Wesson, and the wholesaler Witmer Public Safety Group.
If you’re going to try to sue some gun companies, it’s probably not a great idea to pick the gun-grabbiest state in America to file the suit. Massachusetts barely even lets Americans buy guns there.
The entire lawsuit is weird and poorly written. The first six gun manufacturers listed above don’t even have a principal place of business in Massachusetts. That’s why Judge Saylor dismissed the lawsuit against them. Smith & Wesson and Witmer Public Safety Group are the only companies that are still in the lawsuit at this point.
There’s also the problem that the Mexican government is not a citizen of Massachusetts.
“None of the alleged injuries occurred in Massachusetts,” wrote Saylor in his ruling. “No Massachusetts citizen is alleged to have suffered any injury. And plaintiff has not identified any specific firearm, or set of firearms, that was sold in Massachusetts and caused injury in Mexico.”
The gunmakers argued that the lawsuit is in violation of the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which holds that gun manufacturers can’t be held liable if their products are used in the commission of a crime. A judge agreed and tossed the case entirely, but then it was revived by the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
Smith & Wesson and Witmer Public Safety Group had no comment after the lawsuit was allowed to continue against them. An attorney for the National Shooting Sports Foundation says that Mexico was engaged in “obvious forum-shopping” when it picked Massachusetts to file the lawsuit. They were hoping they’d get a liberal anti-gun judge to hear the case and stick it to the gunmakers. The attorney adds that he’s optimistic the US Supreme Court will ultimately end up tossing the case entirely.
