In the wake of more than 240 mass shootings in the U.S. in the first half of 2022 alone, and renewed conversations about gun violence following the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Mexico’s unprecedented lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers, filed in August 2021, could have far-reaching implications for gun-control laws in the U.S. and for the availability of firearms internationally. For Mexico, the stakes could not be higher.

In 2004, when the U.S. Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired and was not renewed by federal lawmakers, military-style semi-automatic assault weapons became available on the U.S. market.  Supermarkets, gun fairs, armories and websites offer such weapons to interested buyers. According to a New York Times investigation, a decade after that ban expired, mass shooting deaths in the U.S. had increased 347%.

Just to the south, Mexico’s gun laws are tight. The Defense Ministry is the only government body that can issue licenses and sell guns. There is just a single gun store in all of Mexico, located in Mexico City, and the requirements for purchasing a gun include background checks, drug testing, and even a letter of reference from an employer. But lax regulations to the north create a spillover effect, in which firearms flow illegally into Mexico and add fatal fuel to violent conflict.

In 2006, former Mexican president Felipe Calderón declared a domestic war on drugs, which took a militarized approach to fighting cartels and led to the splintering of criminal organizations, bloody conflict over territory and other in-fighting within criminal groups. This policy change came on the heels of the 2004 expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban in the U.S., which made it easier for Mexican crime syndicates to obtain military-style semi-automatic firearms. Both the homicide rate and the proportion of homicides committed with a firearm have increased steadily since then. In 2004, 25% of Mexican homicides were committed with a firearm; by 2020, that figure had risen to 70%.

According to security officials, the most popular firearms in Mexico — such as the .50 Browning M2 machine gun, the .50 Barrett, the AR-15 and AK-47 — are made in the U.S. These models appear in propaganda videos filmed by cartels, in which members flaunt their arsenal, and they’re also used in high-profile clashes with security forces, such as the attempted assassination of Mexico City’s security chief in 2020 and the failed raid to capture the son of drug lord El Chapo Guzmán in Culiacán, Sinaloa, in 2019. On that occasion, the Sinaloa cartel seized the city and coerced security officials into releasing El Chapo’s son in an impressive show of force that involved burning vehicles, blockading streets and firing heavy weapons for hours.

Not everyone who fires an assault weapon in Mexico is a drug-pin. The civil-society organization Promoción de Paz in the northern city of Monterrey provides support to families of incarcerated people and their communities. Luis, a formerly incarcerated person who asked that we not use his real name, works directly with youth in high-risk environments. He says teens as young as 15 can easily buy a firearm if they have the means, or acquire one from a gang once they are recruited. Today there are at least 150 criminal groups operating in Mexico, according to researchers at the  Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas. Each gang spreads its tentacles deep into communities and enlists ever-younger children to their causes.

“It’s young people between the age of 18 and 23 who are filling up jails,” says Marco (not his real name), another member of Promoción de Paz. Marco was recently released after eight years in prison. “A kid with a gun in their hand believes nothing bad can happen to them. They have no idea of the consequences.”

Like plastic waste cluttering a shoreline, guns do not simply disappear after they have been used to commit violent crime. A firearm that has been used in a homicide becomes cheaper to buy on the black market, explains Luis, and the person ultimately caught using that weapon will likely be accused of the crimes attached to it. According to the Small Arms Survey, a nonprofit that provides information on armed violence, more than 13 million unregistered firearms are circulating in Mexico.

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There have been some bilateral efforts to address the problem of U.S. firearms flowing south. One recent example is a meeting held in 2019 between both countries’ top security officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Patrol and others. But more than meetings will be required to staunch this crisis.

“The problems in the gun trade are structural,” said John Lindsay-Poland from the organization Stop US Guns to Mexico, referring to the legal — and lucrative — gun industry in the U.S. and the entrenched networks of organized crime in Mexico. “It’s not like you can flip a switch, pass one law or have one bilateral conference and it would change things.”

The Mexican government took a bold step when it filed a lawsuit to hold major U.S. gunmakers responsible for “designing, producing, distributing and commercializing their firearms negligently.” If allowed to proceed, this suit — which claims that gunmakers’ business practices cater to criminal groups in Mexico and that gun manufacturers profit from illicit trafficking — could challenge the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which shields the gun industry from nearly all civil liability. By puncturing manufacturers’ immunity in this way, Mexico’s lawsuit could lead to the gun industry being held to account for gun violence in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Widespread attention on Mexico’s lawsuit has helped build bridges between Mexican advocates seeking to end gun trafficking and gun-control activists in the U.S. “A firearm that is produced in the U.S. is more likely to kill a Mexican than an American,” says Carlos Pérez Ricart, professor in the International Studies Department of the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas in Mexico City. “Their fight needs to be our fight.”

It’s been almost a year since Mexico filed the lawsuit. In January, after U.S. gunmakers filed a joint motion to dismiss the case, more than two dozen U.S. district attorneys, state attorneys, civil society organizations and even two Caribbean countries filed amicus briefs in support of Mexico’s suit. According to León Castellanos, researcher at the Asser Institute for International and European Law at The Hague, even if Mexico does not prevail, the country’s biggest win may be “to get a serious place at the table to propose reforming the laws that govern corporate diligence when it comes to the gun industry in the U.S.”

In a few months, a judge in the District Court of Massachusetts will decide whether the case can proceed. If it’s allowed to move forward, this alone would threaten the absolute immunity from prosecution that gun companies presently enjoy.

Do you think nations like Mexico that are affected by U.S. firearms should be able to influence American gun policy?

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