Mexico’s Misguided Lawsuit against American Gun Companies

Mexican officials, assisted by the gun-control group Brady United, filed a lawsuit against several U.S.-based firearm manufacturers alleging that these companies encouraged gun trafficking into Mexico. Mexico seeks $10 billion in damages and injunctive relief. They claim the firearm manufacturers are responsible for the rampant crime, corruption, and uncontrolled murders being committed in Mexico by Mexican drug cartels.

These allegations are baseless. The Mexican government is responsible for its failure to enforce its own laws and control rampant crime and corruption within its own borders and government.

The lawsuit is the anti-gun lobby’s latest attempt to undermine the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). Passed in 2005 with broad bipartisan support, the law forbids lawsuits that attempt to blame members of the firearms industry for the criminal misuse of lawfully sold firearms by remote third parties over whom industry members have no control. It’s the same legal concept that would keep victims of criminal drunk driving from suing Budweiser and Ford. No manufacturer of a non-defective product that is lawfully sold is legally responsible for the subsequent criminal misuse of the product. The PLCAA simply codifies this bedrock legal principle.

That doesn’t faze Brady United or the Mexican government. They are willing to overlook basic facts about legal firearm sales in the United States, illegal smuggling of guns, and well-documented corruption in the Mexican government that aids drug-fueled crime within its borders.