MEXICO IS COMING FOR YOUR GUNS

MEXICO IS COMING FOR YOUR GUNS

AND YOU THOUGHT IT WAS JUST THE DEMOCRATS

Mexico routinely ranks among the top five countries in the world in the category of gun-related homicides. Of course, this is due to the cartels using violence to tighten their stranglehold on the currency of fear and intimidation. Criminals traffic in firearms as criminals do—in the dark and frequently through our “line in the sand” nonexistent border. They procure these firearms through clandestine channels, and the criminal-to-criminal pipeline sometimes involves Americans who have been prosecuted in U.S. courts for such trafficking, which usually involves straw purchases. Existing American law, when enforced, prohibits this conduct, and despite these laws, American weapons, lawfully produced and lawfully sold to wholesalers and distributors, are still used by some of the most violent gangs and organized criminal enterprises in the world. Especially the most violent—the Mexican drug cartels.

What should not surprise anyone is the fact that Mexico has some of the world’s MOST STRINGENT gun laws. Yes, there are one- or two-gun stores in the whole country, and one is on a military base. One wonders whether corrupt Mexican officials traffic in these, as corruption is an everyday feature of life there, but the political leadership of Mexico has done what American politicians of the left have perfected, and that is to blame the instrument—the weapon—and the American corporations that lawfully produce them pursuant to United States and local laws. Former Mexican military members have joined cartels, stolen weapons from armories, and formed de facto armies. The gun battles between them and the Mexican National Police and Guard are just a YouTube search away. Yet it is Smith and Wesson’s fault. Read on.

So, you ask—what is the point here? Well, last week the United States Supreme Court granted review of a case against a laundry list of venerable and historic firearms manufacturers filed by the Government of Mexico seeking to obtain billions in reparations for their having to battle internal crime in their country. One would think such a case is dead on arrival. In 2006, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, 15 U.S.C. Sections 7901–7903, which protects firearms manufacturers from liability for harms resulting from downstream misuse of their products. This suit, which involves violent crime in a foreign country wherein dangerous cartel members use such arms to kill and terrorize, would normally be kicked right out of court. Well, no. Even though the trial level U.S. District Court dismissed the case as barred by that Act, the First Circuit Court of Appeals distorted the law of proximate causation and found that a loophole in the law applied. They remanded it for trial. It said that Mexico had sufficiently pled that Smith and Wesson, Sturm Ruger, Colt, and several others “knowingly” violated firearms laws that caused injuries. In Mexico. They “aided and abetted,” each of them, by lawfully selling firearms to wholesalers and distributors that found their way across the border through unforeseeable criminal design. With no regard for the intervening and superseding criminal acts in violation of American law, Mexico, using an American court, wants not only money damages for the mayhem caused by cartels on THEIR OWN SOIL but an injunction banning the American manufacture of AR-15 style rifles and large capacity magazines being produced on OUR SOIL. They also wish to impose requirements on sales and manufacture that are contrary to existing state and federal law. Yes, the GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO seeks to use our courts to destroy the Second Amendment’s protections, bankrupt the companies already under siege by the left, and have a friendly court sitting in an anti-gun jurisdiction unconstitutionally legislate by injunction and require several changes to well established federal and state gun laws. Outrageous, and it is up to SCOTUS to bring sanity to this. I cannot say it any better than this excerpt from Smith and Wesson’s counsel’s brief seeking a writ of certiorari asking (it turned out successfully) the Supreme Court to weigh in on this insanity:

“ …. The government of Mexico has sued America’s leading firearms companies, seeking to hold them liable for violence perpetrated in Mexico by Mexican drug cartels. It accuses the companies of aiding and abetting those cartels for decades- all under the nose of the U.S. Government, every U.S. Attorney’s Office, and every state regulator. For this the Mexican government seeks billions of dollars in damages, plus far-reaching injunctive relief that would reshape the landscape of American firearms regulation- from a ban on what it calls “assault weapons” to a court- enforced system of universal background checks….”

Able counsel went on:

“…Mexico’s suit challenges how the American firearms industry has openly operated in broad daylight for years. It faults the defendants for producing common firearms like the AR-15; for allowing their products to hold more than ten rounds; for failing to restrict the purchase of firearms by regular citizens; and for refusing to go beyond what American law already requires for the safe production and sale of firearms…. In Mexico’s eyes, continuing these lawful practices amounts to aiding and abetting the cartels. According to Mexico, American firearms companies are liable because they have refused to adopt policies to curtail the supply of firearms smuggled south—such as making only “sporting rifles” or cabining sales to only those with a “legitimate need” for a firearm as defined by Mexican law.”

The absurdity of this suit by Mexico runs head-on into the Second Amendment and the protections of American law. The corrupt government of Mexico is helpless to stop the narco-state it has become and uses this shameless distraction to pander to its ever-growing left. In June, 58 percent of Mexican voters elected left-winger Claudia Sheinbaum as president. During the term of her predecessor Andres Obrador, whose policies she will not likely retreat from, political corruption, violence, and a historic rise in gun-related homicides skyrocketed. The deflection of this suit from the real cowardice of that government in failing to destroy the cartels mirrors our own political cowardice in rewarding crime and opening the border while vilifying police and the gun industry. Cue Harris-Walz. SCOTUS must stop this sham intrusion on our law, sovereignty, and the Constitution.

CONCLUSION

The nightmare scenario is if a Harris-Walz administration stands down its Solicitor General or, in the worst case, has her weigh in on the side of Mexico, indirectly, by supporting this loophole that isn’t. Why not hide behind the Mexican government to destroy by a thousand cuts the American firearms industry as we know it by tacitly supporting this action? Left-leaning outlets like the LA Times have applauded and encouraged this suit. Our government has enabled Mexican cartels to make billions by gaming our border under the watchful and feckless eye of the Mexican government. Why not double down? This will be a closely watched argument this term. Yours truly will be filing an amicus. Wish us, as Americans, good luck.

Mike Imprevento
October 2024