EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The government of Mexico will be back in court next month, fighting a battle on two fronts to keep U.S.-manufactured guns from reaching the drug cartels.
A status conference hearing is set for Feb. 9 before Chief U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. This involves a $10 billion lawsuit against five major U.S. gunmakers and one distributor the Mexican government alleges are deliberately facilitating the trafficking of firearms into Mexico.
Mexico has a single gun store and issues some 50 licenses per year. An estimated 342,000 to 597,000 guns flow illegally into Mexico each year, including armor-piercing .50-caliber sniper rifles. American guns are linked to a growing number of homicides in Mexico, the lawsuit alleges.
The gunmakers argued the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) protects them from lawsuits involving how their product is used, and Saylor dismissed the case on Oct. 1, 2022. But the U.S. Court of Appeals last Monday said exceptions apply, reversed the dismissal and remanded the case back to the Massachusetts court.
A status conference has been set for Feb. 22 in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona in a separate firearms lawsuit brought forth by Mexico. That one involves half a dozen Arizona gun dealers Mexico says are also facilitating the trafficking of firearms across the border.
The hearing involves a motion by the defendants for the judge to dismiss the case. The dealers argue a lack of jurisdiction by Mexico, a lack of standing and a failure to state a claim. The latter means that even if the Mexican government has presented facts, it has not established there was a direct cause of action.
The case is now presided over by a new judge, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Marquez, an Obama appointee, after Senior U.S. District Judge Cindy Jorgenson recused herself late last year.
The Mexican government appears to be heartened by the change. The Foreign Ministry shared a statement with Border Report saying the new judge has been proactive in requesting information from both parties before the hearing.
“This request reflects Judge Marquez’s deep interest in conducting a thorough analysis of the matter, which confirms the seriousness and importance of the case,” the Foreign Ministry said.
The Mexican government was also pleased by winning the appeal in the Massachusetts case, in which a circuit judge drew a parallel between the U.S. ending its so-called “assault gun ban” in 2004 and skyrocketing drug cartel violence after that.
“Mexico has strict gun laws that make it virtually impossible for criminals to obtain firearms legally sourced in the country. [….] Despite these strong domestic regulations, Mexico has the third highest gun-related deaths in the world,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge William J. Kayatta Jr. in a U.S. Courts of Appeals First Circuit Court decision obtained by Border Report.
Kayatta said the number of homicides in Mexico grew from fewer than 2,500 in 2003 to 23,000 in 2019, and that the number of murders committed with a firearm south of the border rose from 1 in 6 in 1997 to seven out of 10 by 2021.
“The increase in gun violence in Mexico correlates with the increase of gun production in the United States, beginning with the end of the U.S. assault weapons ban in 2004,” the judge wrote.
The lawsuit alleges that American semi-automatic rifles are easy to convert into fully automatic and that manufacturers and distributors are not preventing guns from being sold to “straw buyers” — cartel agents — at gun shows and stores.
