Photo: APU GOMES / AFP / Getty Images
By: Manuel Ocaño / Special for La Opinión Posted Mar 27, 2023, 2:06 am EDT
California prosecutor Rob Bonta joined 16 of his colleagues from other states in supporting the government of Mexico in its lawsuit against the largest firearms factories in the country.
According to that lawsuit, an average of 200,000 firearms cross from the United States into Mexico each year.
The US Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives estimates that 70 percent of the weapons recovered by Mexican authorities and armed forces were sold in US gun stores and crossed the border at smuggling south.
For this trafficking, Mexico filed a lawsuit in August 2021, but a federal court dismissed it, considering that a law protects gun shops from liability for what is done with the weapons they sell, and now the Mexican government appealed that decision.
The coalition of 17 prosecutors sent a letter of support to Mexico to the appeals court. Prosecutor Bonta personally stated that “arms manufacturers and sellers appear to believe that the law” applied by the court that ruled against Mexico “gives them a free pass to manufacture and distribute weapons that they know are being used to terrorize communities in Mexico.” .
He said that “in other industries, companies are very aware that they can be held liable when they break the law; with firearms it should be no different.”
Calling for the gun shops to take responsibility, the prosecutors urged “the appeals court to reverse the lower court’s decision and allow this case to move forward.”
This is the second time that prosecutor Bonta has supported the Mexican government in its lawsuit. Last year Bonta led 13 state prosecutors, declaring that “while the law may afford firearms manufacturers some protection, it is not a free pass to knowingly allow their products to fall into dangerous hands.”
This time, the one who heads the coalition of prosecutors in support of Mexico is the Massachusetts prosecutor, Andrea Campbell, because in her state there is both the court that ruled in favor of the corporations that manufacture arms and the First Court of Appeals, where today the case.
The Mexican government charges that the use of firearms smuggled into Mexico has caused nearly 300,000 deaths in some 14 years and contributed to some 73,000 disappearances, including several US citizens.
The weapon with which four US citizens were kidnapped this month and two of them murdered in Matamoros, Tamaulipas was legally acquired in Texas, but crossed the border illegally into Mexico.
The federal prosecutor’s office in McAllen filed charges against Roberto Lugardo Moreno, who acknowledged that he was paid $100 to buy the R15 rifle and bring it to Brownsville. Moreno declared that he “knew that – this and other weapons – they were going to be provided to a person from the Gulf Cartel in Mexico.”
The law that allegedly exempts gun factories from being responsible for what buyers do with their products is the federal Protection of Legal Trade in Guns Act, or PLCAA, for its acronym in English.
But prosecutor Bonta says that the same law recognizes the authority of states in the country to “create remedies for conduct that causes harm to their residents,” that is, to stop the damage that firearms can cause.
According to the prosecutor, the weapons cause the same damage to people on both sides of the border, and the PLCAA cannot recognize the authority of the states but not of Mexico to stop the damage.
The 17 prosecutors together also warn the appeals court that when Congress approved the PLCAA law, it thought of regulating weapons, not giving immunity to gun shops.
They also argued that the exceptions to that law exclude liability.
Prosecutors supporting Mexico represent the states of Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
The companies that Mexico sued are Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Ruger, Glock, Century Arms, Barrett and Colt, and firearms dealer Interstate Arms.