German “anti-weapons campaigner” Jürgen Grässlin [above] is not happy that a Mexican murderer used an American-made SIG SAUER to kill a Mexican “social activist.” Grässlin’s filed a lawsuit against SIG SAUER Germany alleging SIG failed to keep tabs of its American subsidiary’s handgun sales. SIG counters that this “crime gun” – and the other SIGs south of the border – entered Mexico via a legal sale to a dealer (which could only be the Mexican government). Grässlin’s suit follows a German government ban on German SIG exports to the U.S. after “tens of thousands” of U.S.-made guns ended-up in Colombia without an export license. And a similar action against Heckler & Koch for the “seepage” of German-made G36’s to Mexican cartels. Borderland Beat has the story . . .
German gunmaker faces criminal charges in Marisela Escobedo killing
German weapons maker Sig Sauer is facing a second lawsuit on suspicion of illegally exporting guns to Latin America. A Mexican drug cartel member has confessed to killing 12 people with one of its handguns.
German anti-weapons campaigner Jürgen Grässlin has filed charges against Sig Sauer after revelations that a Mexican drug cartel member used one of the company’s 9mm handguns to kill 12 people – including a prominent human rights campaigner.
The charges – on suspicion of illegal weapons exports – were filed following the release of Chihuahua court documents about the 2010 murder of Marisela Escobedo. The 52-year-old woman became a prominent activist in Chihuahua after a man who confessed to murdering her 16-year-old daughter was acquitted by a Mexican court.
In a short documentary [ED: “Master of Death“] aired on Sunday night, German state TV network ARD showed CCTV footage of the murderer chasing Escobedo across a street in the city of Chihuahua and shooting her in the back of the head.
“It’s a particularly horrifying case, but it’s also a special case – it’s very rare,” said Grässlin. “We have a convicted killer who confessed that he killed at least 12 people, and the gun’s serial number – and Sig Sauer themselves say it is one of their guns.”
“We don’t know where exactly the gun was assembled – but we know it was German expertise, German technology – either separately or in one piece – and it found its way to the perpetrator in Mexico – the fact that he had it was illegal, because there was no export license,” he told DW.
Mother and daughter killed
Escobedo’s daughter Ruby disappeared in 2008, and her mother, frustrated at the slow police investigation, found out for herself that Ruby had been killed in 2008 by her boyfriend, a member of the Los Zetas drug cartel. He was subsequently arrested, confessed, and led the police to her body – only to be acquitted for lack ofevidence. ARD showed Escobedo break out in tears in a courtroom in 2010 as the verdict was read, before screaming at the judge and storming out.
For the next seven months until her murder, Escobedo campaigned against Mexico’s judiciary, which has often been accused of corruption, before finally confronting the chief state prosecutor himself. “I am convinced that she signed her own death sentence on that day,” lawyer Gabino Gomez, a close associate of Escobedo, told ARD.
Unlike her daughter’s boyfriend, Escobedo’s killer – another member of Los Zetas – was convicted, and the Sig Sauer gun was identified as the murder weapon (among an arsenal of some 200 firearms found in his possession). “Now we know that it was a 9mm gun, from a German firm,” said Gomez. “According to the files, he killed another 11 people with this weapon alone.”
No export license
Chihuahua is one of four Mexican states that the German government has declared as too dangerous and corrupt to export weapons to, and the German Economy Ministry has confirmed that Sig Sauer has not been granted an export license to Mexico since 2000.
Sig Sauer did not respond to a request for comment from DW, but according to ARD it has claimed that the murder weapon was produced at its factory in New Hampshire, in the US, and sold, probably in a batch of several hundred, to a legal dealer in Mexico.
“But if they want to pass on deliveries, to Colombia, to Mexico, to Venezuela or wherever, they need another export license,” Grässlin told DW. “This definitely didn’t happen.” According to Germany’s Federal Office of Export Control, an export license is still necessary if “technology from Germany has been exported to the subsidiary company in the US in advance,” and confirmed that it had not received an application for a license from Sig Sauer.
Sig Sauer, which is based in Eckernförde, northern Germany, is already under significant legal pressure after it was revealed last year that tens of thousands of its handguns, manufactured in Germany, found their way to Colombia via its US subsidiary. Grässlin pressed charges against the firm over the revelations in July 2014, and within days the German government banned the company from exporting any more weapons.
This is more legit than I expected from the headline. If Sig knew that the Mexican dealer was passing them along, they had a duty to report and not ship them.
A lawsuit that Sig is responsible because their gun was used what the U.S. law prohibits. A lawsuit that they violated export control laws is an issue in Germany and here. It’s a bit of a non-sequitur to bring up the former when the latter applies.
Point taken. Intro revised.
The thing to me that seems a bit of a stretch is that the handgun was produced in the US, and lawfully exported to a dealer in Mexico, but the claim is that Sig needed an export license i9n Germany for every single firearms built in the US based upon Sig technology, originating in Germany, being used to to manufacture the weapon. If sustained, this argument could shut down the US manufacturing facility, which is the stated intent of this activist.
No Export License = Crime Against Bureaucracy.
To Progressives, such bureaucratic/paperwork crimes are far worse than violent crimes. Can’t have someone doing something without the PROPER FORM!!!
Bloody Vogons!
BRAAAAAAAZIIIIIIIILLLLL!
I bet they just forgot form 27b-6.
Well if Sig hadn’t exported that handgun all those people would still be alive! /sarc
These are the same kind of as****** who demand lawsuits and imprisonment for firearms manufacturers just because some thug shoots someone with a certain kind of gun.
IMHO this is nothing but BS “moral outrage”. Sig should fight this and counter sue.
They also don’t actually care about the people who were killed. If they did they’d demand the murderers be brought to justice. The dead are just a soapbox for them to stand on as they use them as props for their disarmament agenda.
People like this guy are disgusting.
Price of Sigs going up in 3,2……
I was seriously considering selling my P220…now I reckon I’ll hold on to it…
because paperwork makes even the most horrific ideas totally ok.
With not to friendly firearms manufacturing government that in Germany right now. This not gone go well for Sig Sauer in Germany. Special after all troubles Hk going through with that same unfriendly Germany government right now.
Export license is just more UN arms trade BS. On the other hand, why are any companies in the US doing business in Mexico? Just from the PR standpoint alone what percentage of arms sales to legal dealers in Mexico end up in the hands of the drug gangs? For that matter what percentage of arms sold to the Mexican government do the drug gangs manage to aquire? That government is massively corrupt and fully complicit in the invasion taking place across our southern border.
Sig and hk. Move ur hq’s to the southern half of the U.S. Be glad to have ur companies based out of gun friendly territory.
Sig is based in NH. HK operates out of NH, GA, and VA.
Not sure which of those is lacking in the gun friendly department.
Not U.S. HQ. All HQ. Get out of any country state or locale that restricts gun rights. Not saying the NH, GA locations are unfriendly.
The issue is not the US government, it is the German government, and the criminal charges have been filed in Germany because Sig Saur Gmbh did not have an export license (from Germany) for the sale of handguns manufactured in NH. After all, the tech for the guns came from Germany, and the argument is that it needs an export license for its own tech to its own subsidiary.
If I’m not mistaken, rifling originated in Germany. Does that mean any firearm with rifling is subject to stupid German laws. All Sig has to do is pick up and move out of Germany (like they did with Switzerland) and the Germans can’t do a thing about it. German law carries no weight outside Germany.
Because the company is where the German gov’t can hammer it.
I will not comment on the legalities or ethics surrounding Heckler and Koch or Sig Sauer.
I will say this: do the fools calling for government (or even private sector pressure) to shut down firearms manufacturers fully understand the implications of their efforts? Should their efforts come to fruition, no one in Western Europe, The United States of America, Canada, or Australia will be manufacturing firearms. And why is that significant? That means there be no one to supply gun grabbers’ beloved state run police and military and both will soon be unarmed. And their Final Solution vision of utopia will just be settling in when some other country like Russia or China — countries who will never shut down their firearms manufacturers — use their firearms to walk right in past our unarmed police and military and take over.
Just when I think a fool cannot outdo him/herself, they amaze me and outdo themselves.
That would mean that Taurus or Russian companies will be supplying arms to the world.
Russian or Chinese would be the more likely scenario. Brazil is pretty left wing now, so it’d fold along with the rest.
As I was discussing with a friend of mine, this issue is endemic. The Germany military has been seriously underfunded and mismanaged for many years. More than half of its air force is grounded due to a lack of spare parts and personnel, the army has been drawn down, and although its tank is one of the best in the world, it was built twenty years ago (and upgraded). In a recent Nato war games, the regiment assigned to the exercise had to borrow equipment and parts from 48 other units just to take the field–and even then it was under-equipped.The government devotes 1.2% of GDP to the military, far below the Nato recommended level of 2%. The way things look right now, Germany could fight for a day or two at best if Russia were to invade.
Russian military is not particularly well funded either, most of active manpower are conscripts with very limited training (a few years ago it was not atypical for them to shoot a single mag at the range in all their time in service), and equipment is similarly in shambles. It has been ramping up slowly recently, and there are several units that are at full strength and stuffed with trained career military guys, but nowhere near enough for a major war.
Fortunately, the ATF obtained export licenses for all the Fast and Furious guns. Because why would the ATF break a German law when there are so many American laws to break.
All I can say is “wow”. Yes, the real problem here is totally the manufacturer of one of waaaaay too many guns in the hands of the Mexican cartel/Mexican government. They’re the same damn thing down there now. No shit someone in a cartel is going to murder your wife/child/friend in cold blood then get away with it. They own the entire country. If they don’t or can’t own you, they just kill you. But noooooo, it’s those evil guns! They’re STILL the only actual problem here!
So one of the side effects of Fast & Furious is lawsuits against German gun makers because BATFE ordered dealers to sell firearms to Mexican gun runners?
So, would Mr. Grasslin be happier if the murderer used a S&W? Or maybe a hammer or baseball bat? Bad people do bad things, a manufacturer is not responsible for the misuse of their products. If they were, Jack Daniels would be f*****
Problem: The Mexican government is supplying weapons to drug thugs.
Solution: Simple! Stop selling guns to the Mexican government.
I love how the statists call it “German” technology in order to give government legitimacy in restricting the company’s foreign subsidiaries. How will Sig, an originally Swiss firm who moved to Germany to avoid Swiss export laws respond? I think they’ll just move out of Germany.
^This. Since Sig already makes a big chunk of their guns in the US, the lawsuit shouldn’t effect them too much in the long run.
I would love to see them trying to sue a russian company,
“Is gun. Is not supposed to be safe.”
*Takes sip of vodka and goes back to pretending to work.*
Yes, to stop the export of all AK pattern rifles. Cause guns are bad m’kay?
Why does activist so often mean “asshat”.
So… he’s the firearms version of an ambulance chaser?
What a waste of skin…
Man in Mexico murdered with 2×4 from the US.
US tree farmer named in lawsuit along with US millwright.
I’m always amazed with how much paste a liberal can eat on a regular basis and how they avoid any effort to get after the real problem.
Liberalism: when you want to avoid real work and just make noise and feel good about yourself.
Folks Obama and team probably sold the guns as part of their “sting” where they lost thousands of guns sold to folks in straw deals to ship them to drug dealers. . . . what a joke. Lets trace the SN and see shall we?
Simple: Both SS and H&K should pack up and move ALL operations to the States. Wait’ll those dumb krauts (I’m half German, on my Dad’s side, I can say that) have to pay import fees to US!
Iran Contra scandal, Ronald Reagan and Ollie North. Jürgen Grässlin should sue the top executives not the company that will put many people out of work. This is just another form of gun control and i would guess he is a paid off plant. If he was such a humanitarian he should do what Mother Teresa did, OR sue North Korea for the MILLIONS of dead there. mrpresident2016.com
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