Latest news with #JonathanLowy
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘There's No Second Amendment Right to Sell Guns to the Cartels'
Should U.S. gun manufacturers who flood weapons dealers in border states with the guns that drive cartel violence in Mexico be held liable in court? The Supreme Court heard arguments last week about whether a case brought by the Mexican government can go to trial. The gun industry is armed with a congressionally-tailored shield against liability for its deadly products. But the novel Mexican lawsuit seeks to bypass a 2005 law known as the Protection of Legal Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) by arguing that U.S. gunmakers negligently distribute arms to fly-by-night gun shops that are known to arm the Mexican drug cartels. The case has reached the high court without ever going to trial. It was dismissed initially at the circuit level where a federal judge ruled that PLCCA forestalled the lawsuit. A federal appeals court reversed that ruling, however, finding the merits of the case deserve to be heard. The conservative Supreme Court is now weighing the matter. Its ruling, expected later this year, could either embolden the gun industry's worst practices by declaring them, for lack of a better term, bulletproof. Or it could expose them to untold liability for the havoc wreaked in Mexico by drug cartels that have built military-grade arsenals — as U.S. gunmakers looked the other way, and turned a tidy profit. To better understand the legal claims in this case, Rolling Stone spoke to one of the lawyers on the Mexican side, Jonathan Lowy, the founder of a legal group called Global Action on Gun Violence. Lowy is a longtime litigator on gun violence, who worked for 25 years with the organization Brady, which fights gun violence domestically. Lowy was involved in turn-of-the-century lawsuits, brought by cities that — inspired by the litigation against Big Tobacco — sought to hold gunmakers responsible for the public harms created by their products. (Those suits inspired industry to lobby for and secure the passage of the PLCAA shield law in the George W. Bush era.) Lowy has been a part of litigation seeking to poke holes in PLCAA ever since, as well as myriad legal actions highlighting the regulatory failures of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) which hasn't held rogue gun dealers to account. 'I've been involved in most gun lawsuits against gun manufacturers and gun dealers since 1997,' Lowy says, jokingly comparing himself to 'Zelig or Forrest Gump.' Lowy, 62, launched Global Action on Gun Violence a couple of years ago, inspired by his work on the Mexican case. 'I saw that Mexico was willing to take bold action to address this huge problem,' he says. 'I felt the international aspects of U.S. gun policy offered new pressure points for change.' The transcript that follow has been edited for length and clarity. Why should people in the U.S. be concerned about the flow of illegal guns to Mexico? This impacts huge policy issues: the fentanyl crisis, opioid overdoses, migration, the spread of transnational crime. These big issues in the U.S. are all fueled by U.S. gun industry practices that are supplying the cartels. There should be general agreement on wanting to stop the pipeline of guns. President Trump just designated the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Trump has said that stopping the cartels is a top priority. There's been some suggestion that U.S. military troops could be used. Do we want our troops to be shot at and perhaps killed with U.S. guns? There's also general consensus, between red states and blue states, about stopping the opioid crisis and fentanyl coming across the border. That only happens because of the arms the cartels have. And migration [to the U.S.] is spurred by the violence in Mexico — violence committed with U.S. guns that are trafficked from the gun industry. These are issues that either cut across politics or are even of greater concern to conservatives and Republicans. And all of them require stopping the iron pipeline of guns to Mexico. Can you explain the sales dynamic that fuels cartel violence? Mexico has strong gun laws. One gun store in the whole country. It's very difficult for criminals to get guns there. But it's extremely easy for them to get guns through the U.S. gun industry, sold by U.S. gun shops. That's the basic problem Mexico is trying to address. They've got this flood of guns pouring across the border. And that it makes it extremely difficult to stop the cartels, when they have as much firepower as they do, and it's continually replenished. The cartels are spawned by U.S. guns and the U.S. gun industry. The way to stop that is to cut off the crime-gun pipeline at the source, to shut off the spigot. To what extent is this illegal flow of guns a problem of the gun manufacturers actively participating versus turning a blind eye? With a lot of the issues that the Mexico case involves, we have found in other litigation that the gun industry knows about the problem they're creating. The gun manufacturers in the U.S. have known for over 30 years that they are a huge part of the problem of criminal gun violence. They have been told by the U.S. government; by insiders within the gun industry; by their own gun dealers; and by ATF that the reason that criminals get guns is because there's a small percentage of gun dealers that, either recklessly or illegally, sell guns to obvious straw buyers and traffickers. Over 20 years ago, ATF reported that about 90 percent of gun dealers sell zero crime guns in a given year. But about 5 percent of gun dealers sell about 90 percent of crime guns. If you slice it thinner, about 1 percent of gun dealers sell over 50 percent of crime guns. In every profession, there are bad apples. But in the gun industry — because the nature of the business — those bad apples are able to do tremendous damage. Manufacturers know all this, but they deliberately choose to sell their guns through the worst-of-the-worst gun dealers because they want to profit off that criminal market. How does this relate to Mexico specifically? When it comes to Mexico, it's even more stark. The entire Mexican market is basically illegal for the U.S. civilian gun industry. The only way for them to legally get guns into Mexico would be to export to the one gun store, with very few sales, or to the military or police. So this is all deliberate. The industry has even taken on law enforcement [to defend this trade]. Under federal law, if there's a 'multiple sale' of handguns, that sale has to be reported to ATF. But if there's a 'multiple sale' of long guns — rifles or shotguns — it does not have to be reported. The Obama administration issued an emergency rule saying, we've got this big problem of gun traffickers working for the cartels going to the border states and buying multiple assault rifles — AR-15s, AK-47s — and ATF needs to know about that so they can look into whether those are traffickers. It's a pretty modest requirement. It would not stop any of these sales. ATF didn't have the authority to stop the sales. The only point was ATF could investigate. Well, the National Shooting Sports Foundation — the trade association that the manufacturers all belong to — brought a lawsuit to try to get that rule struck down. They lost the lawsuit. But it's quite extraordinary that an industry is told by federal law enforcement, 'You're supplying drug cartels through these multiple sales,' and for the industry to say, 'We want to keep this a secret. We don't want law enforcement to know when these multiple sales happen.' Can you speak a little bit to why ATF enforcement efforts are so rare? ATF is extremely under-resourced. It's rare that they actually revoke a license of a dealer. I've litigated cases against gun dealers where there was a paper trail with ATF of 20 years of violating the law, and yet they didn't get their license revoked — either at all, or only after we brought suit and it became an embarrassment. There's more police in New York City than there are ATF agents in the whole country, and that results in the fact that ATF has the capacity to inspect very few dealers. And the manufacturers know this. Their policy is to sell to dealers even if they've been indicted. So long as they still have a license, the manufacturers' view is: God bless America. You're presumed innocent until you've been convicted. So if all we're dealing with is maybe a video tape or a wiretap which catches a dealer conspiring with a trafficker, that's not good enough until a jury and a judge convicts them. What does the gun distribution chain that enables the flood of guns to Mexico look like? Does the industry wash its hands using middlemen? In most cases, the manufacturer sells through a distributor, who then sells to the dealer. However, there are manufacturers that sell directly to dealers. And there have been manufacturers who have sold at retail — Smith & Wesson and Beretta used to have some shops. But even the ones that have a three-tier system have the ability to either cut off supplies to dealers, or to only supply to dealers that meet certain standards. They've done that over the years, when it has served their bottom line. So they've cut out bad apples before? Smith & Wesson agreed to all this. We had a settlement in 2000 with the U.S. government and a number of cities where they agreed, 'We're not going to supply high crime dealers. We're going to require all of our dealers to meet certain standards.' They recognize they could do this. Then they walked away from it — and got away with that. But they recognized that it was doable. What kind of volume of guns is reaching Mexico? The numbers are several hundred thousand up to a half-a-million guns or more every year. There is a great report called The Way of The Gun that has numbers about the financial aspect of the illegal trade. [Editor's note: The report estimates up to 3.7 percent of U.S. gun sales are attributable to trafficking to Mexico.] So cartels are sending up agents who recruit Americans who get guns? It's Americans who are going into the gun stores, and they're being sent by people working with the cartels. In our complaint, we go into examples of how this works. Often you'll have people go into a store and they'll buy a few AR-15s. Maybe they'll buy a .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifle — these extraordinary weapons that can shoot down a helicopter, and have a mile range, and can shoot through the fuselage of an airplane. They may buy a few thousand rounds of ammunition and a whole bunch of high-capacity, 30-round magazines. Maybe they'll buy them in cash. And then they'll come back a few weeks later, maybe the next month, and they'll buy another whole bunch. Anyone in their right mind knows from the first sale that that this person is clearly a gun trafficker. They're not buying all this for their own use. The second time, it becomes undeniable. The third time it's beyond that. I don't know if I'm getting too cinematic here, but the guns are then trafficked south of the border in the trunk of a car? There's been reporting about the guns going through in cars — some of them broken down into parts and hidden within cars. Some of it may be in cargo — mixed in with legitimate goods, that sort of thing. And as you see it, the flow of guns south is sort of the reciprocal trade of drugs that come north? We, the U.S., supply the guns, and we also supply the customers to buy the drugs. It's a cycle that depends on the guns. You would not have these powerful criminal organizations if they didn't have firepower. That is their life's blood. And they get 70 to 90 percent of it from us. Before we jump into the claims in the case, can you quickly talk about PLCAA — where that came from, and how it's been used as a get-out-of-lawsuits-free card. PLCAA is the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which was enacted in 2005. It was pushed by the gun lobby to give the gun industry special protection from civil liability that no other industry in the United States has. Whether you're a doctor or you're selling tuna for sandwiches, you do not have a special law that makes it more difficult for you to be held liable. Initially, some courts took a very broad view of PLCAA. Then over time, a lot of appellate courts took a closer look at what the text of PLCCA actually says — and they recognized that there are exceptions In PLCAA which allow for liability. It's still more restrictive than other industries, but there have been dozens of cases since 2005 where the courts have recognized they are not barred by PLCAA [from allowing cases to go to trial]. One of the more notable exceptions — which is the one that's at issue in Mexico's case — essentially says that the Protection of Lawful Commerce and Arms Act does not protect unlawful commerce in arms. It says that if the gun company violates a law applicable to the sales and marketing of firearms, and that causes harm, then that company is not protected by PLCAA, and they're treated like every other industry. That's what Mexico alleges, and what the First Circuit Court of Appeals agreed: that Mexico had adequately alleged that the manufacturers violate federal gun laws by aiding and abetting illegal sales, and that those violations cause harm to Mexico, and therefore PLCAA does not shield them from liability. To be clear, the appeals court didn't issue a judgment. But rather said this case can go forward based on the theory presented by Mexico? Exactly. This is just the motion-to-dismiss stage, where the court is supposed to assume that the facts alleged are true. Mexico will have to prove that in court. And that's the critical point. Mexico's view is that manufacturers have every right to defend themselves, to try to prove that these allegations are false and that they're doing the right thing. Have at it. We welcome that. The only issue really is whether Mexico will have an opportunity to prove its allegations in court. What is the relief Mexico is seeking? It's both damages and injunctive relief. You don't specify it at this stage. But damages that Mexico has suffered in property damage, helicopters shot out of the sky — all of the financial damage. They're also seeking injunctive relief, which would be a court order aimed at stopping the iron pipeline of guns. The gist of it would be requiring defendants to stop aiding and abetting illegal gun sales. Walk me through a little bit what happened at the Supreme Court. I'm counsel on the case. So I'm going to be a bit bland in what I say. The court was engaged and asked tough questions of both sides. When manufacturers were up, Chief Justice Roberts was basically saying, at some point, your clients would be the cause of this harm. Like, you can draw the line where you want, but if, say, 70 percent of the gun dealer sales were going to Mexico, wouldn't you recognize that then the manufacturer was a cause? So that seemed to suggest he recognized that there could be liability in a case like this. It just depends where you draw the line. To what extent did the Second Amendment come up? We covered when Ted Cruz wrote an amicus brief in this case, effectively arguing that a profitable gun industry is necessary to safeguard the Second Amendment — so you can't go after gun industry profits because, by golly, that would eviscerate access to arms. My view is the cartels do not have Second Amendment rights. There is no Second Amendment right to sell guns to the cartels, even through intermediaries. There's no Second Amendment right to illegally sell guns. Ninety percent or more of gun dealers obey the law and act in a responsible way. The problem is that the gun industry is using the worst-of-the-worst gun dealers. This case is about the Mexican criminal market. The gun industry can survive without the illegal Mexican cartel market for firearms. Maybe their revenues would go down a little bit. But they're not placed in jeopardy. That's sort of an absurd argument. What was the thrust of the industry's case at the Supreme Court? If you look at the gun industry briefs, the manufacturers are arguing, 'Heads, I win, tails, you lose.' Whatever happens, we will always evade accountability. More from Rolling Stone DOJ Official Says She Was Fired After Refusing to Give Mel Gibson His Guns Back The Supreme Court Is Going to Rule on the Legality of 'Conversion Therapy' Olympian Turned Drug Lord Ryan Wedding Added to FBI 10 Most Wanted List Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Supreme Court to hear Mexico's suit against U.S. gun manufacturers
March 4 (UPI) -- The Mexican government's lawsuit against U.S. gun companies is set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. The lawsuit, originally filed in federal court in Massachusetts in 2021, seeks to hold gun manufacturers responsible for violence perpetrated by cartels using firearms trafficked from the United States. The suit was dismissed in September 2022, with the court citing the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which shields gun manufacturers from being targeted by civil suits stemming from illegal use of their products. The decision was reversed in January 2024 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, which ruled that the lawsuit falls under an exception to the PLCAA that allows manufacturers to be targeted by lawsuits if they knowingly violated the law. Jonathan Lowy, a lawyer serving as co-counsel for Mexico and president of Global Action on Gun Violence, alleged the gun manufacturers are aware of unscrupulous gun dealers selling to cartels. "Manufacturers know who those dealers are, how they're supplying the cartels, and yet they continue to choose to sell their guns through those dealers, and allowing those sales practices," Lowy was quoted as saying by NPR. The Smith & Wesson Brands vs. Estados Unidos Mexicanos case is now set to go before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, marking the high court's first case involving the PLCAA. A decision in the case is expected by summer.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Mexico, US gunmakers face off in historic Supreme Court case
There is only one gun store in the entire country of Mexico, yet America's southern neighbor is awash in violent crimes perpetrated with millions of firearms made in the United States. In a historic case on Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether American gun manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson, Glock, Beretta and Colt, can be held liable for allegedly "aiding and abetting" the illicit flow of weapons across the border. The high court has never before taken up the issue of the sweeping gunmaker immunity found in a 2005 federal law aimed at protecting the industry. Its decision could have a significant impact on firearm companies and the victims of gun violence pursuing accountability. MORE: Federal appeals court strikes down ban on handgun sales to teens The government of Mexico is seeking $10 billion in damages and court-mandated safety mechanisms and sales restrictions for U.S.-made guns. The justices will decide whether the case can move forward under an exception in the law. "Between 70-90% of the crime guns in Mexico are illegally trafficked from the U.S.," said Jonathan Lowy, an attorney representing the Mexican government. "Essentially, Mexico's gun problem and the problem of armed cartel violence is almost entirely a result of this crime -- a gun pipeline from the U.S. gun manufacturers ultimately to the cartels." The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 broadly bars lawsuits against any gun manufacturer over the illegal acts of a person using one of a manufacturer's guns. But it does create an exception for claims involving a gun company's alleged violation of rules governing the sale and marketing of firearms. Mexico alleges the manufacturers have for years knowingly marketed and distributed their weapons to border community dealers who participate in illegal gun trafficking into Mexico. MORE: Supreme Court finds 'radical agreement' in employment discrimination case "The law is clear that any person or company can be responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their actions and, in this case, of their deliberate actions," Lowy said. The gun companies, which declined ABC News' request for an interview, said in court documents that the exception does not apply and the case should be dismissed, in part, because the alleged link to crimes in Mexico is too diffuse and far removed. "Mexico's alleged injuries all stem from the unlawful acts of foreign criminals," the gun companies argued in their Supreme Court brief. The court has "repeatedly held that it requires a direct connection between a defendant's conduct and the plaintiff's injury," the companies claimed. "Thus, the general rule is that a company that makes or sells a lawful product is not a proximate cause of harms resulting from the independent criminal misuse of that product." MORE: Crackdown on do-it-yourself firearm kits is curbing ghost guns. Will it last? More than 160,000 people in Mexico were killed by guns between 2015 and 2022, according to an analysis by Everytown for Gun Safety. A large majority of guns involved in the shootings came from U.S. border states. More than 40% of illegal guns seized in Mexico over a five-year period came from Texas, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report. In 2023 alone, more than 2,600 firearms were seized going south into Mexico, up 65% from the year before, according to the Department of Homeland Security, and 115,000 rounds of ammunition were captured headed the same direction, up 19% from 2022. "In its zeal to attack the firearms industry, Mexico seeks to raze bedrock principles of American law that safeguard the whole economy," the companies wrote in their brief. "It is the criminal who is responsible for his actions, not the company that made or sold the product." A federal district court dismissed Mexico's case in 2022 citing the PLCAA protections. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in early 2024, saying Mexico had made a plausible case for liability under the law's exception. MORE: Crackdown on do-it-yourself firearm kits is curbing ghost guns. Will it last? The Supreme Court will decide whether to affirm that judgment and allow the case to continue toward what would be a first-of-its-kind trial. Mexico, in the meantime, announced it will expand its lawsuit after the Trump administration designated six Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. "You will also see an expansion of this lawsuit for the complicity of those who sell weapons, which are [then] introduced into our country," Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters last month. In essence, Mexico will argue that American gun manufacturers aren't just enabling ordinary gun crime but terrorism, by the U.S. government's own characterization. The Supreme Court is expected to deliver an opinion in the case, Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, by the end of June. ABC News' Matt Rivers and Patty See contributed to this report. Mexico, US gunmakers face off in historic Supreme Court case originally appeared on
Boston Globe
03-03-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
At Supreme Court, Mexico to offer culprit for cartel violence: Gunmakers
The case reverses longstanding complaints by President Trump that Mexican cartels have contributed to rising violence in the United States. Instead, Mexico argues the majority of guns found at Mexican crime scenes come from the United States. It seeks some $10 billion in damages from US gunmakers. Advertisement The dispute comes before the justices at a time of heightened tension between the two countries as the Trump administration leans on Mexico to crack down on illegal migration and cartel organizations. Tariffs on imported goods from Mexico are scheduled to go into effect Tuesday — the same day justices are set to consider the guns lawsuit. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Trump has cited drug trafficking from Mexico as one of the factors driving the decision to impose tariffs. His administration has taken a number of steps to push back on the cartels, including designating more than a half-dozen of the criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations. That move could result in penalties, including criminal charges, for companies found to be entangled with the cartels, but it has also raised concerns from the Mexican government of a potential violation of Mexico's sovereignty. Lawyers for Mexico argue that US manufacturers and gun dealers are complicit in what they call an 'iron river' of firearms pouring into the country and arming cartels. They point to strict controls on gun purchases in Mexico, where civilians are not allowed to purchase the types of rapid-fire, powerful military-style weapons favored by the cartels, as evidence that as many as 500,000 firearms are smuggled from the United States into Mexico each year. 'It is far easier and far more efficient to stop the crime gun pipeline at its source and to turn off the spigot,' said Jonathan Lowy, president of Global Action on Gun Violence and a longtime litigator against the gun industry who has worked on the case on behalf of Mexico. Advertisement The gunmakers, joined by a slew of gun groups including the National Rifle Association, have argued the lawsuit would undermine gun rights in the United States. 'Mexico has extinguished its constitutional arms right and now seeks to extinguish America's,' the NRA said in a brief in support of gunmakers. 'To that end, Mexico aims to destroy the American firearms industry financially.' The case may be viewed skeptically by the Supreme Court, where the 6-3 conservative supermajority has worked to expand gun rights. But at a time when Trump has targeted the country, it has offered a forum for Mexico to publicize its countercase that US gun manufacturers share the blame for cartel violence. The Mexican government has also sued several gun stores in Arizona and could expand the effort by filing additional suits. At a conference last month in Latin America, Pablo Arrocha, a legal adviser for Mexico's foreign ministry, said that two lawsuits filed so far marked only the beginning of a broader legal strategy to push back against the flow of guns across the border. For years, Mexico has pushed the United States to do more to curtail the trafficking of US-manufactured guns over the border. When Trump announced he would delay tariffs against Mexico in February, both nations had agreed to address their respective concerns: Mexican authorities promised to work to stem the flow of drugs across the border while US authorities would try to combat gun trafficking. In recent days, there have been signs of improving relations between the two countries, including when the Mexican government last week sent to the United States nearly 30 top cartel operatives wanted by US authorities. But inside the White House, Trump's advisers remain split over whether to take more substantial action in Mexico, including carrying out military strikes against Mexican drug cartels. Advertisement A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Mexico first sued multiple gun companies in 2021, arguing that the cartel bloodshed was 'the foreseeable result of the defendants' deliberate actions and business practices.' A trial court judge dismissed the case, finding it was barred by a 2005 federal law that limits litigation against gun manufacturers and distributors and has provided immunity from actions brought by the families of people killed and injured by their weapons. A unanimous panel of judges of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston overturned that decision. They found that the lawsuit met the criteria for a part of the law allowing for litigation in cases where knowing violations of firearms laws are a direct cause of plaintiff injuries. Gunmakers asked the justices to hear the case, Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, No. 23-1141. Lawyers for Smith & Wesson argued Mexico had presented a legal theory that was an 'eight-step Rube Goldberg, starting with the lawful production and sale of firearms in the United States and ending with the harms that drug cartels inflict on the Mexican government.' The lawyers contend gunmakers acted lawfully in the United States and cannot be held responsible for illegal cartel behavior in Mexico. They cited a 2023 Supreme Court case in which the court ruled unanimously that social media companies could not be sued for aiding terrorism because they hosted posts from the Islamic State group. Advertisement A trial court judge dismissed Mexico's case against six of the defendants on other grounds, leaving the Supreme Court's decision in the case to apply to claims against Smith & Wesson, a gun manufacturer, and Interstate Arms, a wholesaler. This article originally appeared in
