A federal judge partially dismissed a $10 billion lawsuit from the Mexican government claiming several U.S. gun manufacturers were responsible for facilitating arms trafficking to cartels, according to court documents released Wednesday.
Judge F. Dennis Saylor of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts dismissed Mexico’s complaints against six major gun manufacturers, ruling that Mexico could not sue because they did not prove sufficient harm and none of the companies were incorporated in Massachusetts, according to the filings. The Mexican government alleged in a lawsuit filed in 2021 that the companies contributed to illegal firearms trafficking to Mexican cartels across the southern border from sales in Massachusetts through a Boston-based distributor, Witmer Public Safety Group.
“The core question for jurisdictional purposes is whether Mexico’s claims against the six moving defendants ‘arise’ from their business transactions in Massachusetts. As to those defendants, the connection of this matter to Massachusetts is gossamer-thin at best,” Saylor wrote. “The government of Mexico is obviously not a citizen of Massachusetts. None of the six moving defendants is incorporated in Massachusetts, and none has a principal place of business in Massachusetts. There is no evidence that any of them have a manufacturing facility, or even a sales office, in Massachusetts. None of the alleged injuries occurred in Massachusetts. No Massachusetts citizen is alleged to have suffered any injury. And plaintiff has not identified any specific firearm, or set of firearms, that was sold in Massachusetts and caused injury in Mexico.”
The six companies granted a dismissal are Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Beretta U.S.A., Century International Arms, Colt Manufacturing Company, Glock, and Sturm, Ruger & Co, according to the filings. Smith & Wesson (S&W) and Witmer Public Safety Group were not granted a dismissal, as S&W was formerly based in Massachusetts before moving to Tennessee, according to Fortune, as well as Witmer Public Safety Group.
The lawsuit alleged that 342,000 to 597,000 guns made in part by the gun companies are trafficked across the border annually, according to the filings. They also alleged that after the 1994 Assault Weapons ban expired in 2004, there was an increase in guns manufactured and trafficked to Mexico.
Saylor said Mexico did not provide “sufficient proof” that the six gun manufacturers in question could be blamed for deaths caused by cartels in Mexico using trafficked firearms, according to the filings. Saylor added that Mexico has “no specific proof” that the companies in question sold “weapons to individual dealers in Massachusetts, and that some weapons sold by those dealers—although not necessarily those supplied by the six defendants—were illegally trafficked to Mexico.”
“Whether plaintiff might be able to establish personal jurisdiction over any of the six defendants in a state where it is actually located—or that otherwise has some reasonable connection to the pleaded claims—is not a question before this Court,” Saylor wrote. “For now, it is enough to say that the plaintiff cannot do so here. Accordingly, and for the following reasons, defendants’ motions to dismiss will be granted.”
In 2022, the lawsuit was dismissed by Saylor for the first time, ruling that Mexico’s claims against the gun manufacturers were barred by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which protects gun manufacturers from some types of civil liability, according to the court filings. The lawsuit was revived in January 2024 when Judge William Kayatta of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Saylor’s decision, saying that Mexico “plausibly alleges a type of claim that is statutorily exempt from the PLCAA’s general prohibition,” according to Reuters.
Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms industry trade organization, was pleased with the ruling but expressed concern for the remaining companies in the case.
“[The National Shooting Sports Foundation] is pleased Mexico’s obvious forum shopping scheme by filing in federal court in Boston has failed. However, several defendants remain in the case which was correctly dismissed in the district court based on the Protection of Lawful Commerce Act,” Keane told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We are optimistic the U.S. Supreme Court will grant the pending petition asking the court to correct the First Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that reversed the district court order and reinstated the case. Mexico should focus its efforts on bring Mexican narco-terrorists to justice in Mexican courtrooms instead of trying to scapegoat the lawful firearm industry.”
S&W, Beretta, Hilliard Shadowen, the law firm representing Mexico and the Mexican Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment. Barrett, Ruger, Century Arms, and Glock could not be reached for comment.
(Featured image credit: DoD/public domain)
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