America’s gun epidemic isn’t just affecting America. The nation’s southern neighbor, Mexico, has its own chronic violence crisis — one fueled mostly by firearms brought in from the United States. The Mexican government is now suing 10 U.S. gunmakers over the violence.
That suit appears to have little chance of success, in part because of the same federal law that generally prevents Americans from suing gunmakers for the mayhem their products help cause. But if the lawsuit highlights the absurdity of that law and bolsters the argument of the Biden administration and others who say it should be repealed, it would go a long way toward bringing sanity to federal gun statutes.
Mexico is awash in gun violence driven largely by drug cartels wielding American-made weapons. Some 70% of guns confiscated in Mexico have been traced to U.S. origins. The guns are mostly smuggled over the border, which might seem on its face to relieve the gun manufacturers of culpability. However, the Mexican government argues in its suit, those manufacturers are helping drive illegal arms smuggling in several ways.
Many of the guns are marketed in the U.S. border region in ways that appear designed to appeal to Mexican buyers, such as giving the weapons Spanish names and even decorating them with the likenesses of Mexican cultural heroes. The suit claims the gunmakers also do business with distributors that have known ties to Mexican drug cartels, virtually guaranteeing that some of their product will end up south of the border. Further, the military-style design of many of the weapons makes them ideal for cartels that operate more like private armies than mere gangs.
Even if the Mexican government clears the uphill hurdle of making those arguments stick in court, it faces a bigger problem, the same problem faced by anyone who attempts to take on U.S. gunmakers: In a country where marketing a defective baby crib or a dangerous toy can spawn massive litigation, the makers of deadly weapons of war — products with literally no function but to kill — are shielded by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a 2005 law that severely limits the ability of anyone to sue gunmakers over gun violence.
There are ways to chip away at that law, as the parents of Sandy Hook Elementary are doing, exploiting a loophole that has allowed them to sue in state court over the marketing techniques employed by Remington Arms Co., maker of the AR-15-style rifle that killed their 20 children in 2012.
But what’s most urgently needed is the law’s repeal. President Joe Biden has called for just that, but like all attempts at any gun reform whatsoever, it has run into Republican refusal to move an inch. Here’s hoping Mexico’s lawsuit strengthens the case for repeal by highlighting yet another way in which gunmakers enable violence and death.
