By: Teresa Mull

In August 2021, GPM reported the Mexican government was suing several prominent gun manufacturers, alleging they cause “massive damage…by actively facilitating the unlawful trafficking of their guns to drug cartels and other criminals in Mexico.”

We shook our heads and laughed collectively at the idea America should be held responsible for our southern neighbor’s inability to control its own country. The National Shooting Sports Foundation declared the lawsuit “baseless,” adding that the numbers the lawsuit alleges about the number of U.S. guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes are questionable, at best.

But now, 13 U.S. states have turned their backs on America and are supporting Mexico.

CNN reports:

The attorneys general of 13 states and Washington DC this week expressed support for a federal lawsuit by the Mexican government that accuses a group of American gun manufacturers of facilitating the trafficking of weapons to criminals in Mexico, fueling gun violence.

In a brief filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the Democratic attorneys general — including those in California, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New York — argued against the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case, saying that a federal law providing legal protection to gun manufacturers does not apply in this case.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. federal court in Boston. Familiar names such as Smith & Wesson, Glock, Barret, Beretta, Colt, and others are among the defendants. According to the lawsuit, these companies use “marketing strategies to promote weapons that are ever more lethal, without mechanisms of security or traceability.”

Mexico is seeking $10 billion in damages.

Other states betraying the U.S. in favor of the Mexican government include: Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Oregon.

The Hill reports some other countries, “Antigua and Barbuda, a Caribbean island state, and Belize, the only English-speaking Central American country,” have also “filed an amicus brief supporting Mexico’s claims.”

Teresa Mull ([email protected]) is editor of Gunpowder Magazine.