U.S. Attorney’s Office Demands Gun Stores Take Responsibility

California Attorney Rob Bonta has joined 16 of his out-of-state colleagues in supporting the Mexican government in its lawsuit against the country’s largest firearms factories.

According to the lawsuit, an average of 200,000 firearms are shipped from the United States to Mexico each year.

The U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives estimates that 70 percent of weapons found by Mexican authorities and military forces were sold in U.S. gun stores and smuggled south across the border.

Mexico filed a lawsuit for this trade in August 2021, but a federal court dismissed it, considering that the law protects gun shops from liability for what is done with the weapons they sell, and the Mexican government has now appealed the decision.

A coalition of 17 prosecutors sent a letter of support to Mexico to the Court of Appeal. Bonta’s prosecutor personally stated that “arms manufacturers and dealers appear to believe that the law” applied by the court that ruled against Mexico “entitles them to freely manufacture and distribute weapons that they know are being used for terror in Mexican communities.

He said that “in other industries, companies are well aware that they can be held liable for breaking the law; with firearms it should not be otherwise.”

Calling on gun shops to take responsibility, prosecutors called on “the appellate court to reverse the lower court’s ruling and let this case move forward.”

This is the second time Bonta’s prosecutor has supported the Mexican government in its lawsuit. Last year, Bonta led 13 public prosecutors, saying that “while the law may provide firearms manufacturers with some protection, it cannot be deliberately allowed to fall into dangerous hands.”

Massachusetts Attorney Andrea Campbell is leading the coalition of prosecutors in favor of Mexico this time around, as her state has a court that ruled in favor of arms corporations and the First Court of Appeals, where today’s case is.

The Mexican government claims that the use of firearms smuggled into Mexico resulted in the deaths of almost 300,000 people over 14 years and contributed to the disappearance of about 73,000 people, including several US citizens.

The weapons that this month abducted four US citizens and killed two of them in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, were legally acquired in Texas but illegally crossed the border into Mexico.

McAllen federal prosecutors have filed charges against Roberto Lugardo Moreno, who admitted he was paid $100 to buy an R15 rifle and ship it to Brownsville. Moreno stated that he “knew that this and other weapons would be given to a man from the Gulf Cartel in Mexico”.

The law that supposedly exempts gun factories from liability for what customers do with their products is the federal Lawful Arms Trade Protection Act, or PLCAA.

But Bonta’s attorney says the same law recognizes the power of states in the country to “create remedies for acts that harm their residents,” that is, to stop the damage that firearms can cause.

The guns cause equal damage to people on both sides of the border, the prosecutor said, and the PLCAA cannot recognize the power of the states, but not Mexico, to stop the damage.

The 17 prosecutors together are also warning the appeals court that when Congress approved the PLCAA, it was thinking about regulating guns, not giving gun shops immunity.

They also argued that exceptions to this law excluded liability.

Mexico-supporting prosecutors represent Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The companies that Mexico has sued are Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Ruger, Glock, Century Arms, Barrett and Colt, and Interstate Arms, a firearms dealer.