SILVER AND LEAD Inside Mexico’s Historic Lawsuit Targeting U.S. Gun Companies

 ALEJANDRO CELORIO ALCANTARA was not surprised when the responses finally came in. As a top legal adviser in Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Celorio led a team of lawyers in filing a historic lawsuit in August, accusing some of the United States’ most well-known gun companies of lethal negligence on a mass scale. Seeking $10 billion in damages from a decade and a half of shoot outs and killings, the unprecedented litigation aimed to succeed where gun violence victims north of the border are all but guaranteed to fail, asking a Massachusetts federal court to hold 10 U.S.-based companies accountable for their products’ impact abroad.

Smith & Wesson Corp. pistols sit on display at the company's booth during the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting of members in Indianapolis

Coming back from lunch on November 22, the date of the defendants’ deadline to respond, the Mexican lawyer-diplomat found that the companies had done exactly as he expected, arguing that a 2005 law that the National Rifle Association considers one of its greatest legislative achievements, which grants “broad immunity” to gun companies in gun violence lawsuits, is not bound by borders. It extends everywhere, they argued, including Mexico. The companies’ message, as Celorio read it, was simple: “’We don’t care what we’re doing. We don’t care if others don’t like the way we’re doing it. We’re gonna continue to do it.’”

The “veil of impunity,” as Celorio called it, was expected. What did catch his attention, however, was a potential seepage of politics into what Mexico insists is an apolitical legal challenge. The manufacturers, holding companies, and distributors accused in Mexico’s 139-page complaint include Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Beretta U.S.A., Beretta Holding, Century International Arms, Colt’s Manufacturing Company, Glock, Glock GES.M.B.H., Strum, Ruger & Co., Witmer Public Safety Group, and Interstate Arms. In a joint filing urging the court to dismiss the suit, the firms representing the companies — among them one of the largest law firms in the world, Jones Day, which represented President Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election — argued that “at bottom, this case implicates a clash of national values.”

“Our reading is that they’re going to try to politicize this,” Celorio told The Intercept. “They’re already increasing the political cost to the judge to rule in favor of Mexico. They’re saying, ‘You’re an American. If you let this litigation pass, you don’t hold dear to your heart the American values.’”

More than two years in the making, the story of Mexico’s lawsuit against U.S. gun companies is unfolding on multiple levels at once. The litigation itself tests whether legal protections inscribed in the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA, which President Joe Biden urged Congress to repeal in his national strategy to prevent gun violence earlier this year, extends to foreign countries. Should the challenge succeed, it would deal a historic blow to U.S. gun manufacturers.

With limited exceptions, PLCAA has provided a near-impermeable shield to the U.S.-based small arms industry. For the gun companies, the law represents a vital bulwark against potentially industry-ending lawsuits. For gun control advocates, who point to instances like the victims of the Aurora, Colorado, theater massacre who were ordered to pay $203,000 to an ammunition dealer after losing a lawsuit on PLCAA grounds, it is the epitome of a deeply American brand of gun company impunity.

The legal fight is also taking place against the backdrop of a dramatic historical moment in the U.S.-Mexico security relationship. In the year before and the year after PLCAA was passed, two key events took place. First, in 2004, Congress permitted a federal assault weapons ban in the U.S. to expire. Second, in 2006, the Mexican government announced the deployment of the military into the streets in a “war” on drug trafficking. The Bush administration threw its support behind the campaign with a multibillion-dollar security aid package known as the Mérida Initiative, beginning an era of unprecedentedly close binational collaboration in the drug war’s most violent front.

With the shifts in law to the north and the declaration of war to the south, the stream of military-grade weaponry flowing into Mexico, legally and illegally, became a surging river of iron. In the past decade and a half, Mexico has weathered its worst period of violence since its revolution more than a century ago, with more than 400,000 people killed and paramilitary-style criminal groups building U.S.-sourced weapons arsenals capable of inflicting significant damage on government forces. Each year, according to Mexico’s complaint, an estimated 500,000 U.S.-made firearms are illegally trafficked over the border into a country with just one legal gun shop, owned and operated by the army, and some of the strictest gun laws in the Western Hemisphere.