Photo: Christopher Capozziello / Getty Images
Eight arms manufacturers and sellers asked a federal judge in Boston, Massachusetts, to dismiss as inadmissible the civil lawsuit that the Government of Mexico presented against them last August, with which it seeks to make them jointly responsible for the violence in the country.
Firms such as Glock, Barrett Firearms, Sturm Ruger & Co and Colt asked Judge Dennis Saylor to dismiss the lawsuit with several arguments, the main one being that the Massachusetts federal courts do not have jurisdiction to resolve a dispute. for acts of violence that occurred in Mexico with legally manufactured weapons, the vast majority of which were trafficked from Texas, California and Arizona.
The companies presented a joint memorandum, and also individual petitions, questioning the legitimacy of Mexico to initiate an action of this type.
“The theory of Mexico is that a series of third parties, intermediaries in the United States, legally or illegally buy and resell the weapons we manufacture, which are then illegally obtained by buyers ‘of straw’, who illegally traffic them across the border to Mexico, where they are eventually used by drug cartels to commit criminal violence, which in turn causes financial damage to the Mexican government, “says the joint memorandum.
” For multiple reasons, the law cannot be stretched over this spatial, causal and temporal gulf to impose responsibility (on manufacturers) ”, he adds.
Glock, for example, emphasizes that the lawsuit mentions four acts of violence in which pistols were recovered from that brand, but none were sold in Massachusetts, nor were there residents of that state involved that could justify the intervention of the Boston Court.
“Between all the verbiage a, the lawsuit does not provide a single factual assertion that plausibly demonstrates any right of the plaintiff against Barrett, “said the manufacturer of the famous caliber rifles. 31, capable of shooting down helicopters, which is based in Tennessee.
He added that all the facts stated in the lawsuit derive from the actions of criminals in the United States and in Mexico, who buy illegally weapons in that country, they smuggle them to ours, and use them for acts of violence, which is not the fault of the manufacturers.
Both Glock as Colt also noted that one of their co-defendants is Witmer Public Safety Group, an intermediary who, in turn, sells the weapons to retail stores, some of which are in Massachusetts, but that all these transactions were legal and unrelated direct violence in Mexico.
The Boston Court, in fact, was chosen for the litigation because it has a precedent for favorable rulings in lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations (SRE), which is represented in this lawsuit by the Hilliard Shadowen law firm, will have until 31 January to answer scrap requests , while manufacturers will have up to on 28 for his counter reply.
It will be until then when Judge Saylor will decide whether to dismiss the claim, or whether to proceed to an evidentiary discovery stage, which can last from one to two years.
Mexico filed this lawsuit to demand that the arms manufacturers pay damages and losses , punitive damages and even a percentage of your winnings, as well as multip preventive measures to avoid traffic to national territory, where 70 to 90 percent of the weapons involved in acts of violence come from the United States.
“This wave of arms (to Mexico) is not a natural phenomenon or an inevitable consequence of the business or the arms laws of the United States. It is the foreseeable result of the defendants’ deliberate actions and business practices, ”the lawsuit states.
The defendants are Smith & Wesson , Barrett Firearms, Beretta, Century International Arms, Colt’s Manufacturing, Glock Ges, Sturm, Ruger & Co, and Interstate Arms, as well as some subsidiaries and parent companies.
In the United States, it is extraordinarily rare for a federal civil case to arrive on trial, due to the enormous costs for all involved, who prefer to negotiate.
Between March 1200 and March 2020, only 2, 084 of the 244, 814 civil lawsuits in which a federal court ruled Initial agreement reached the trial stage, with or without a jury, only 0.8 percent.
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