Over a Dozen States Backing Mexico's Attempt to Hobble Smith & Wesson
Thirteen U.S. states have joined a civil lawsuit filed by the government of Mexico against Smith & Wesson, becoming parties to foreign interference to change American gun laws.
Smith & Wesson isn’t the only gun company Mexico is targeting in the lawsuit. Glock, Century International Arms, Ruger and Colt are some of the other defendants named, with the litigation targeting the American firearms industry broadly.
The lawsuit demands that the American gun companies limit the distribution of their products as a result of violence within the United States’ southern neighbor.
This foreign attack on the Second Amendment is being aided and abetted by Democratic states.
In court documents obtained by Courthouse News, Mexico’s lawyers accused the gun manufacturers of violating the country’s import laws.
Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Oregon are listed as amicus parties to the Mexican lawsuit in January court documents published by Just Security.
The amicus brief filed in the case by American states represents cooperation with a foreign government to interfere in domestic American politics.
Through aiding the suit, the states are also jeopardizing the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of their own citizens. The firearms industry employs hundreds of thousands of Americans.
The states filed the brief after Smith & Wesson moved to dismiss Mexico’s lawsuit. The company argued that a foreign country had no right to impose its own domestic laws in American courts.
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So-called progressive “lawfare” has emerged as a new primary tactic of the gun control movement, with bipartisan opposition to gun bans and new restrictions proving insurmountable for gun control’s prospects in Congress and state legislatures.
Mexico had filed its lawsuit in the United States Court of the District of Massachusetts, selecting a venue potentially more amenable to gun control arguments.
In comparison to the United States, Mexico has very restrictive gun laws. The country has only one legal gun store located on a military base.
In spite of this, the country has much higher levels of gun violence, in great part fueled by drug cartels and criminal organizations.
In its federal lawsuit against the gunsmiths, Mexico claims that firearms manufactured by the defendant companies have been used in nearly half of gun violence recorded in the country. “Defendants collectively account for nearly half of all crime guns recovered in Mexico,” the lawsuit reads. “From January through May 2020, Defendants accounted for the following percentages of all recovered guns: Smith & Wesson 9.9%; Barrett 2.3%; Beretta 5.8%; Century Arms 6.2%; Colt 10.8%; Glock 6.7%; and Ruger 6.2%.”
Historically, Mexico has had a legal provision similar to the Second Amendment in the nation’s own constitution. However, the right to bear arms legally has been all but eliminated in the country, with reporting from the Los Angeles Times detailing the months of background checks necessary for legal gun ownership.
In a November speech, the foreign minister of Mexico called for regulation of gun manufacturers at the United Nations, appearing to take aim at the United States’ gun laws.
“This lawsuit does not question the right of countries and individuals to sell arms legally,” claimed Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, “but rather denounces the negligent practices that have serious consequences for other societies.”
In response to hostility from Democrat-governed states, major American firearms manufacturers, such as Remington, have opted to relocate their facilities to jurisdictions that respect the Second Amendment.
Remington, the United States’ oldest gun manufacturer, had been located in upstate New York for two centuries.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
