A US judge on Friday rejected a lawsuit that the Mexican government had filed against large arms manufacturers and in which it asked for 10,000 million dollars.
Mexico was looking for accountable hold companies Smith & Wesson Brands Inc, Sturm, Ruger & Co and Glock and Colt, among others, for designing weapons that, in their opinion, make it easy to be trafficked to drug cartels in its country.
Federal Judge Dennis Saylor of Boston said federal law “unequivocally” bars lawsuits that seek to hold gunmakers liable for weapons falling into the hands of drug traffickers.
Saylor said the Lawful Firearms Trade Protection Act covers lawsuit makers for “harms caused solely by the misuse, criminal or unlawful, of firearms by others when the product worked as designed and intended“.
“While the court has great sympathy for the people of Mexico, and none for those who traffic weapons for Mexican criminal organizations, it has a duty to uphold the law,” Saylor wrote in his ruling.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry immediately said that it will appeal the judicial decision and that “it will continue to insist that the arms trade must be responsible, transparent and accountable, and that the negligent way in which they are sold in the United States makes it easy for criminals to access them.”
When the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador filed the lawsuit in August 2021, it called it an “unprecedented” legal process.
According to data from the Mexican executive provided at the time, each year more than 500,000 weapons are illegally trafficked from the US. and, only in 2019, were responsible for more than 17,000 intentional homicides in the Latin American country.
Mexico assures that the defendant companies are aware that their products are trafficked and used in illicit activities against the civilian population and the authorities.
According to the Mexican foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, when the claim began, the companies developed “different models for the narco” and the country’s intention with the lawsuit is that “the actions of these companies be modified” and that they implement standards to monitor and, if necessary, “discipline their distributors.”
The Mexican government said that the lawsuit is against the companies and not against the US government and its regulations.