Do gun manufacturers in the United States bear responsibility for thousands of murders by drug trafficking organizations in Mexico? The Mexican government has long thought so, and is suing companies for $10 billion in damages. After years of back and forth, the case is now moving up to the Supreme Court. The outcome could have dramatic implications for US-Mexico relations and the drug war.
The civil lawsuit alleges that by arming drug trafficking organizations—indirectly, but knowingly—US gun manufacturers fuel violence on Mexican soil.
Mexico’s government first sued major companies behind brands like Smith & Wesson, Colt’s, Glock and Ruger in a Massachusetts federal court in 2021. But in 2022 the court threw out the case, ruling Mexico did not have standing. It cited the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), signed into law by President George W. Bush (R) in 2005.
The PLCAA effectively shields the gun industry from civil liability when its weapons are used to commit crimes. By signficantly raising the bar for liability, the law prevents most cases against gun manufacturers from going to trial.
Mexico appealed to the First Circuit, and in January 2024 that court unanimously reversed the earlier decision, finding that “the complaint adequately alleges that defendants aided and abetted the knowingly unlawful downstream trafficking of their guns into Mexico.”
The gun companies appealed in turn, arguing that the PLCAA makes clear they can’t be sued for “harms stemming from the downstream criminal misuse” of guns that are legally sold.
Finally, in October 2024, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Arguments are now scheduled for March 4.
“The US [has always been] exporting violence to Mexico, but it’s more clear after 2005 when US gun regulations changed.”
Dr. David Pérez-Esparza is the former head of the National Information Center at Mexico’s Security and Civilian Protection agency, and currently teaches graduate students for the national defense ministry, SEDENA. He worked to pursue this legal strategy against US gunmakers with former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (“AMLO”), in what was an unprecedented move for Mexico. The issue was taboo at the time, he explained, and the lawsuit upset US embassy officials.
“The US [has always been] exporting violence to Mexico, but it’s more clear after 2005 when US gun regulations changed,” Pérez-Esparza told Filter, referring to the PLCAA. “This had a massive impact on gun trafficking and violence in Mexico.”
“We provided 90,000 pages of stories, records and even information provided by the US,” he related. “We found the data show that some states and companies are more involved than others. Instead of a homogeneous phenomenon, it’s focused on specific guns and times, and specific policy changes. This accounts for most of the homicides and violence in Mexico.”
Claims around responsibility for the trafficking of guns and fentanyl have long impacted US-Mexico relations. In 2023, then-Presidents Joe Biden and AMLO agreed on a joint strategy—with Mexico agreeing to crack down further on fentanyl production and trafficking, and the US doing likewise with guns flowing south.
The issues have now passed to their successors, Presidents Donald Trump and Claudia Sheinbaum, whose relationship has been marked by tension and threats.
Following his inauguration in January, Trump confirmed a plan to impose a 25-percent tariff on all Mexican goods exported to the US, based on his claims that Mexico wasn’t doing enough about fentanyl and undocumented immigration. On February 3, Sheinbaum announced she’d agreed to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to the border in an attempt to reduce fentanyl trafficking—in exchange for a promise from Trump to stop gun trafficking into Mexico. This led Trump to temporarily suspend his tariff threat.
Hostilities soon resumed. On February 20, the Trump administration followed through on an inauguration promise to designate drug “cartels” as terrorist organizations, and formally named six Mexican trafficking groups.
Under the new US “Terrorism” designation, gunmakers could be considered complicit with terrorist activity, President Sheinbaum said.
“This cannot be an opportunity for the US to invade our sovereignty,” Sheinbaum responded, amid fears of US military action. She also announced she would seek a constitutional reform to increase penalties for Mexicans and foreigners charged with gun trafficking.
Days before the terrorism designation, Sheinbaum had referenced the gun case now with the Supreme Court, warning, “If they declare these criminal groups as terrorists, then we’ll have to expand our US lawsuit.” Under the new US designation, gunmakers could be considered complicit with terrorist activity, she said.
Pérez-Esparza agrees with her reasoning. “If we accept the fact that Mexican criminals are terrorists, then anyone and any company providing guns should be associated with terrorism,” he said.
Mexico claims that a half million US-made guns are smuggled annually into the country—and that 70 to 90 percent of guns recovered from crime scenes can be traced back to the US. US government data back this up. In February 2021, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that 70 percent of guns recovered in Mexico from 2014-2018 were US-made.
In the lawsuit, Mexico alleges that US gun makers “aid and abet the unlawful sale of firearms,” specifically by supplying them to arms dealers who are known to make “straw” sales. A straw purchase is when one person buys a gun in place of someone else, who may be prohibited from owning it. It’s not known exactly how common this is, but US federal data showed that more than half of guns recovered from US crime scenes in 2021 were bought within the past three years—an indicator of straw purchases. Through bipartisan legislation, the Biden administration imposed stricter penalties for gun trafficking and straw purchases.
Gunmakers “systemically supply dealers with all the guns they can pay for, even if that dealer has violated the law, has been indicted, or has engaged in ‘obvious sales’ to cartel traffickers.”
“Petitioners [the gunmakers] nevertheless choose to supply known red-flag dealers—dealers that have been identified as disproportionally selling firearms recovered at crime scenes in Mexico,” lawyers for the Mexican government stated in court on January 10. “They provide these dealers with the sought-after firearms Petitioners know are frequently the subject of unlawful straw sales to cartel traffickers … Put simply, Petitioners systemically supply dealers with all the guns they can pay for, without any public safety conditions, even if that dealer has violated the law, has been indicted, or has engaged in ‘obvious sales’ to cartel traffickers.”
Mexico maintained that the gun companies aren’t protected by the federal PLCAA if they knowingly violated state or federal statutes related to sale and marketing of their products.
The gun companies responded on February 10, rejecting Mexico’s claim. For it to be true, they wrote, “every law-enforcement agency in the country would have had to overlook for decades an obvious criminal enterprise carried out by one of the most scrutinized industries in the nation. Needless to say, Mexico has not uncovered a decades-long criminal conspiracy hiding in plain sight. It just gets the law wrong … Mere generalized knowledge that some unknown fraction of the products will be used or sold illegally does not make the supplier a felon.”
The Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case is notable in itself, considering how the current conservative-dominated court has effectively expanded Second Amendment gun rights. If the court rules against the gun manufacturers, it would be a shocking blow to an industry that has enjoyed substantial legal protection.
Pérez-Esparza believes this case is a precursor for further legal challenges targeting gun trafficking going forward. Now a private consultant, he is no longer involved in the lawsuit, but suggested how Mexico could proceed in future.
“This is only the beginning of our long-term judicial strategy,” he said. “Production is the first part, we are starting with the supply chain. The next is the brokers, then the gun shops, the gun shows and then the users who are responsible.”
Photograph of AR-15 style rifle by HuntingMark.com via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0
Show Comments