Mexico filed a lawsuit against a number of U.S.-based gun manufacturers on Wednesday, accusing them of “actively facilitating the unlawful trafficking of their guns to drug cartels,” NBC News reports.
The suit alleges that over 500,000 firearms are smuggled from the United States into Mexico every year, with more than 340,000 belonging to U.S. companies such as Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Colt’s Manufacturing Company, Glock Inc, Sturm, Ruger & Co., among others. Mexico claims these U.S. gun makers enacted certain practices that would encourage illegal weapons to enter the country.
“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,” the lawsuit argues.
The suit also points out that one weapon found in the country, the Colt .38-caliber Emiliano Zapata 1911 pistol, features an engraved image of the Mexican revolutionary, which has become a status symbol coveted by drug cartels. Mexico said in the suit that in 2019 alone, the weapons which illegally found their way into the country contributed to the murders of around 17,000 people.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation Inc. refuted these allegations of negligence on behalf of U.S. gun makers, stating that the “rampant crime and corruption within their own borders” falls on the shoulders of the Mexican government.
Before filing its lawsuit, Mexican officials said they spent two years reviewing similar suits against U.S. gun makers for negligent behavior. In June, Remington Arms Co., the oldest gun manufacturer in the U.S., offered a settlement of $33 million to the families of victims in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting after it was discovered that gunman Adam Lanza used the Remington Bushmaster XM-15 rifle to kill 26 people before turning the weapon on himself.
Mexico is seeking an estimated $10 billion in damages.
