Opinion – Mexico is protecting the world from gun violence — starting with the US

With at least 378 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, it’s easy to forget that rising gun violence is a global problem. The people of the U.S. and Mexico both suffer from the same scourge, and it has a common origin: the U.S. is a known supplier of illegal guns trafficked abroad.

It’s the major source of illegal guns running to Mexico and the Caribbean, driving up their gun violence and homicide rates. Under the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico is seizing illegal guns at twice the rate of the previous administration — more than 17,000 in the past year.  According to data from Mexico’s Security Ministry, 70 percent of those guns came from the U.S.

Most illegal guns trafficked across the U.S.-Mexico border come from American gun shops supplied by American gun manufacturers. Recognizing that U.S. guns are flowing across the border, in late September Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a first-of-its-kind joint U.S.-Mexico initiative with new cooperative efforts to combat the problem.

It has been a long road to get the U.S. to acknowledge its responsibility to help stop the flow of guns to cartels and criminal operations abroad. It took a major step forward after the Government of Mexico, in 2021, sued eight U.S. gun manufacturers, including Smith and Wesson, to hold them accountable for lax practices enabling trafficking. This summer, the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) stopped the case, but even so Mexico’s suit was a landmark and a critical step forward.

Mexico states gun manufacturers fuel the criminal gun trafficking pipeline by choosing to sell their guns through bad actors — the worst of the worst gun dealers — knowing that they supply obvious gun traffickers who arm drug cartels south of the border, and that those guns enable widespread violence, drug trafficking and crime.

The complaint Mexico filed showed the world how the gun industry is part of the gun violence problem, and how it could also be part of the solution by cutting off the flow of illegal guns to criminals. It pointed out that law enforcement and even executives in their own ranks told U.S. gun manufacturers to stop supplying dealers that sell trafficked weapons. Yet an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 guns are still illegally trafficked from the United States into Mexico every year.

Although the case was clearly supported by U.S. and Mexican common law principles, and an appeals court unanimously allowed it, SCOTUS held that the case was barred by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a law that gives the gun industry unique protection from civil claims that would otherwise be valid in other industries.

But the court’s decision was narrow and will have limited effect on other gun industry litigation. It rejected the gun industry’s arguments for sweeping immunity from virtually all liability, and allowed for continued liability of gun manufacturers, albeit requiring a higher quantum of proof.

The suit led to Mexico filing a second suit against five gun dealers in Arizona who allegedly contribute to the crime gun pipeline. This lawsuit was not stopped by the Supreme Court’s ruling; it is ongoing and is now in discovery.

This litigation pathway could open a whole new chapter in gun violence prevention — one that might succeed in stopping illegal gun trafficking where other efforts have failed. Mexico’s lawsuits have ramified in important ways, prompting widespread discussion about gun industry culpability in trafficking and garnering support from heads of state throughout the Western hemisphere. These efforts to reform industry practices will benefit Americans as much as Mexicans.

In 2023, the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights issued a report addressing for the first time the gun industry’s role in fueling gun violence. Mexico has requested an advisory opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on issues of gun industry accountability, which is imminent.

Mexico’s calls for action to stop gun trafficking have also been heard by U.S. lawmakers. In 2022, when enacting the first significant U.S. federal gun legislation in 30 years, Congress outlawed cross-border gun trafficking in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The Biden and Trump administrations both recognized U.S. responsibility to stop the flow of guns to its shores, and Americans learned about the U.S.’s deadly export of illegal guns through coverage of the case.

The fight for accountability and reform is long way from won, but it is being waged unwaveringly on multiple fronts, with diplomacy, bilateral cooperation, regional pressure and litigation against those who facilitate the deadly crime gun pipeline. It will take continued progress on all of them to stop the scourge of gun trafficking.

Jonathan Lowy is president of Global Action on Gun Violence. Pablo Arrocha Olabuenaga is legal adviser for Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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