Mexico Sues US Gun Companies Over, Cross-Border Flood of Firearms. The lawsuit was filed by the Mexican government in a Massachusetts federal court.
It names 11 gun companies, including Colt and Smith & Wesson, .
Accusing them of engineering the gun industry “in ways they know routinely arm the drug cartels in Mexico.”.
The lawsuit alleges that the companies' actions have resulted in negligence.
For decades, the government and its citizens have been victimized by a deadly flood of military-style and other particularly lethal guns that flows from the U.S. across the border, Lawsuit Filed By Mexican Government, via 'The New York Times'.
[The flood of weaponry is] the foreseeable result of the defendants’ deliberate actions and business practices, Lawsuit Filed By Mexican Government, via 'The New York Times'.
According to U.S. Justice Department research, .
70 percent of all weapons traced in Mexico between 2014 and 2018 were manufactured in the U.S. by American companies.
These weapons are intimately linked to the violence that Mexico is living through today, Marcelo Ebrard, Foreign Minister of Mexico, via 'The New York Times'.
According to the lawsuit, U.S. gun laws have significant impact upon violence in Mexico.
The end of the assault weapon ban in 2004 meant that increased U.S. production supplied drug cartels with "more military-style assault weapons.".
The increased flow of these weapons across the border coincided with a rise in killings... ... that topped out in 2018 at a gruesome 36,000 deaths.
Depending on the result of the suit, monetary damages could climb as high as $10 billion