Our neighbors to the south apparently like getting slapped down in the US courts. Last year the Mexican government sued a group of American gun manufacturers for $10 billion, claiming they’re to blame for the country’s horrific violent crime problem. Earlier this month, a district court judge dismissed the lawsuit citing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
Judge F. Dennis Saylor didn’t point out the fact that Mexico manages to “lose” about a third of the firearms it buys every year, but the respondents’ attorneys certainly would have if the suit had gotten that far.
Yesterday, with the help of the American civilian disarmament industry, the Mexican government went back to that well, filing another lawsuit, this time against five Arizona gun retailers it claims are the source of illegal straw purchases that arm drug cartels and enable them to murder Mexican citizens and each other.
According to a Mexican government press release . . .
The lawsuit is part of a multifaceted strategy by the Government of Mexico to stop the avalanche of guns, particularly assault weapons, coming from the United States that empower criminal groups, cause bloodshed in Mexico and contribute to drug trafficking to the United States.
This court action in no way challenges the Constitutional right of U.S. citizens to bear arms, nor the right of stores to sell their products responsibly and lawfully. The lawsuit addresses a cause shared by both countries, whose citizens suffer from illicit firearms practices.
Mexico claims that the targeted gun stores . . .
…do not comply with required safeguards; cause foreseeable damage; use misleading and tendentious advertising; sell guns that are turned into automatic weapons; cause a disturbance of public order, and violate state and federal laws, causing enormous damage in Mexico.
A legal adviser to Mexico’s Foreign Relations department claims . . .
“They are not careful when they sell products, so they allow straw purchasers to buy guns,” said Celorio Alcántara, adding they sold multiple guns, multiple times to some purchasers. “We are saying they are negligent and facilitate straw purchasers, to the point of being accomplices.”
That would, in fact, be terrible. But if that’s the case, as the Mexican government claims, we’re sure the sympathetic Biden administration wouldn’t hesitate to unleash a horde of weaponized ATF agents on the allegedly scofflaw gun stores.
Why not go after the stores that way? Answer: because there isn’t nearly as much opportunity for positive pub and sympathetic headlines by the reliably anti-gun US media in going that route.
Helping the Mexican government in this quixotic legal gambit — just as they did in the previous failed lawsuit against gun makers — are the intrepid attorneys of the Brady Campaign gun control advocacy operation. They apparently figure that if you throw enough legal feces against the wall, some of it will eventually stick.
The PLCAA protects gun retailers the same as it does the companies that manufacture firearms. That’s why our addled Commander-in-Chief rails against it so furiously and so loudly at every opportunity. That’s also the reason this Mexican lawsuit isn’t likely to be any more successful than the first one.
