For the first time in history, a foreign government has sued U.S. gun manufacturers.
«Welcome to Mexico», says the customs inspector with a quick glance at your car. Along the entire 3,152-kilometer U.S.-Mexico border, none of the 150,000 cars that cross south each day are inspected. The entire infrastructure is designed to minimize the flow of unwanted migrants and smuggling from south to north, not the other way around. This has allowed the illegal «million dollar business» in Mexico to operate with impunity for some time.
This business has been called El Río de Hierro de Armas a México («The Iron River of Arms to Mexico») — the illegal importation of firearms into Mexico, which experts claim is «child’s play» due to the «negligence» of border and customs officials.
By 2021, the armed violence situation in Mexico had reached critical levels. According to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), 35,625 homicides were committed in the country that year. Of these, 24,484 were the result of gun violence, representing 68.7% of all homicides. The Mexican Foreign Ministry states that 70% of the firearms entering the country come from the United States. This data is confirmed by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
In 2021, the Mexican government filed an unprecedented $10 billion lawsuit in U.S. federal court against U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors. The defendants included major gun manufacturers such as Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc.; Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Inc.; Beretta U.S.A. Corp.; Colt’s Manufacturing Company LLC; and Glock Inc. as well as the Boston-based wholesaler Interstate Arms, which sells guns from all of the named manufacturers to dealers throughout the United States.
Mexico has stated that the smuggling of firearms has led to significant bloodshed in the country, contributing to a high mortality rate, a reduction in investment and economic activity, and requiring significant financial expenditures for law enforcement and public security.
The Mexican government «brings this action to end the massive harm caused by the defendants, who actively facilitate the illegal sale of their weapons to drug cartels and other criminal organizations in Mexico», the lawsuit states.
«These allegations are baseless. It is the responsibility of the Mexican government to enforce its laws and combat crime and corruption within its own borders», said Lawrence G. Keane, chief counsel for the U.S. National Shooting Sports Foundation.
American gun manufacturers have filed motions to dismiss Mexico’s claims based on the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005. The law protects gun manufacturers from damages «resulting from the criminal or unlawful use» of firearms and provides the firearms industry with broad protection from lawsuits over the misuse of their products. However, the law applies only within the territory of the United States.
For these reasons, a Massachusetts district judge dismissed Mexico’s lawsuit in October 2022. «The Mexican government is not a citizen of Massachusetts. None of the defendants is incorporated in Massachusetts, and none has its principal place of business in Massachusetts. Mexico has presented no specific evidence that any of the companies’ activities are related to any harm caused by firearms in Mexico», the judge said.
Mexico appealed, and in January 2024, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in Massachusetts reinstated the case. In mid-August, a federal judge in Massachusetts again dismissed Mexico’s lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers.
In response, the Mexican Foreign Ministry said that the lawsuits against the gun manufacturers would continue and that it was considering the possibility of appealing or going to other U.S. courts.
Recently, the Mexican government filed a separate, still unresolved lawsuit against five Arizona gun stores for allegedly participating in the smuggling of firearms from the U.S. to Mexico.
Alejandro Celorio, legal adviser to the Mexican Foreign Ministry, said the damage caused by the illegal arms trade amounts to 1.7% to 2% of the country’s GDP (over $1.2 trillion last year). «We are not doing this [suing arms manufacturers] to put pressure on the United States. We are doing it so that there will be no more deaths in Mexico», Celorio said.
More than 500,000 firearms cross the southern border from the U.S. into Mexico annually, 68% of which are manufactured by the companies Mexico sued. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has acknowledged that 95% of gun traffickers in Mexico come from the United States.
However, the ATF actually blames Mexico’s strict gun laws for the smuggling problem. In a country of more than 130 million people, according to a recent ATF report, there are only two legal gun stores — in Mexico City and Monterrey — that are tightly regulated by Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA). In addition, the military issues only about 50 permits per year for the legal purchase of small-caliber revolvers.
Illegal gun trafficking from the U.S. to Mexico involves networks of all sizes. As a result, Mexican drug cartels obtain and distribute most of their weapons. Within hours, a Mexican buyer on the black market can purchase an arsenal ranging from pistols to military-style assault weapons, including the M134 minigun, which can fire up to 4,000 rounds per minute.
While Mexico has a closed system for official weapons procurement, in the United States all types of automatic rifles can be purchased at any Walmart, the world’s largest wholesale and retail chain.
The US is the largest gun market in the world. In 2023, there will be 77,813 places to legally purchase firearms in America. This is roughly equal to the number of McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, and Wendy’s restaurants in the U.S. combined.
In 2022, more than 13.4 million firearms were produced in the U.S., enough to equip the entire populations of countries such as Greece, Portugal, or Sweden (in 2001, just under 3 million units were produced). While the U.S. population has grown by 18% in two decades, the number of firearms produced has quadrupled.
According to an ATF study published in 2024, there are approximately 378 million firearms in circulation in the U.S. (excluding 3D-printed or automatically manufactured weapons). This means that for every 100 people, there are approximately 114 firearms. This is about the same as the number of cell phones (116 per 100).
«In the last six years, we have confiscated almost 50,000 firearms. […] Where did they come from? 70% from the United States, and of that 70%, half came from Texas», said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in August.
Most of the illegal firearms were purchased at gun stores in Texas (43%), Arizona (17%), and California (13%).
Guns in Mexico today are used not only to kill, but also as tools of political pressure and extortion. As the Spanish newspaper El Pais noted, American firearms have transformed small-time criminal groups into large criminal networks capable of dominating and challenging state power.
Today, the Mexican state faces an unprecedented crime problem. U.S.-made firearms have expanded the capabilities of criminal organizations. Drug cartels and criminal groups have carved out new niches: human trafficking, home invasions, extortion, store robberies, and mercenary activities. AMLO has failed to keep his six-year promise to keep his people safe.
Without U.S.-made firearms, territorial expansion in Mexico on such a scale would have been impossible.
Over the past four years, the focus of U.S. attention has shifted from the illegal flow of the «iron river of guns» southward to the «river of drugs» from Mexico into the United States.
Even after last year’s decline, according to official data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, the annual number of drug overdose deaths since 2021 has exceeded 100,000. This number of deaths exceeds the annual number of deaths from car accidents and firearms combined. The opioid epidemic «has become a darker and more sinister threat», according to The New York Times.
This is largely due to the emergence of the new drug fentanyl. Drug cartels manufacture it in their laboratories in Mexico and distribute it throughout the United States.
U.S. officials have finally begun to speak in unison with Mexico that the problem of illegal arms trafficking is a serious problem with deadly consequences on both sides of the border.
«These weapons give drug cartels the ability to intimidate local communities, challenge state authority, and expand their deadly drug trade into the United States», said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
However, this is something that U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors, as well as Mexican drug traffickers, refuse to acknowledge.
Conclusion: The U.S. is arming Mexican drug cartels with advanced combat weapons. In turn, Mexican drug cartels are arming American citizens with equally deadly weapons- opioids. And in both cases, people are dying.