People pushing gun control keep trying “creative” ways to steal our gun rights. If they can’t steal them through the legislature, they’ll try through blaming and arresting gun owners. If they can’t steal them that way, they’ll try through executive order. If they can’t do it that way, they’ll try to find some other way.
Such as having another country file a lawsuit in the U.S. to try to get gun control implemented.
No, I’m serious, they tried to do that. Specifically, Mexico filed a lawsuit against eight U.S. gun manufacturers to try to blame those manufacturers for the gun violence problem in Mexico. You can read more about that lawsuit here.
The good news about that lawsuit is that it was crushed in court. Stephen Katte writes,
A Massachusetts District Court Judge has dismissed Mexico’s $10 billion lawsuit against six out of the eight named American gun manufacturers that the country argues are responsible for firearms flooding south across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Katte continues:
In the ruling, U.S. District Judge Dennis Saylor found that Mexico had not shown enough evidence to prove that the activities of six defendant companies in Massachusetts were connected to gun crime in Mexico, citing jurisdictional problems.
As a result, he dismissed the lawsuit against Sturm Ruger & Company, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Glock, Colt’s Manufacturing Company, Century International Arms, and Beretta U.S.A. Corp. Two defendants remain: Smith & Wesson Brands and wholesaler Witmer Public Safety Group.
Again, from Katte:
According to Saylor, the core question for jurisdictional purposes is whether Mexico’s claims against the six moving defendants “arise” from their business transactions in Massachusetts.
However, he says the connection to Massachusetts, in this case, is “gossamer-thin at best” because Mexico’s government is “obviously not a citizen of Massachusetts,” and none of the defendants operate or have a principal place of business in the state.
“None of the alleged injuries occurred in Massachusetts. No Massachusetts citizen is alleged to have suffered any injury,” Saylor said in the ruling.
“And plaintiff has not identified any specific firearm, or set of firearms, that was sold in Massachusetts and caused injury in Mexico.”
Saylor also dismissed the argument that, statistically, it was likely that some firearms sold in Massachusetts were eventually illegally trafficked to Mexico.
This is a crushing blow to this end run that anti-2A zealots tried to use to strip Americans of gun rights.
Put in layman’s terms, the judge said that Mexico isn’t a citizen of Massachusetts, and that’s there is no proof that anyone in Mexico died because of a gun sold in Massachusetts. So, Mexico had no jurisdiction to file their case. Also, none of the firearms manufacturers being sued have primary offices in Massachusetts, so, even if the rest of the accusations against the gun makers in this case were true, the case couldn’t be filed in Massachusetts because, again, no jurisdiction to sue those companies in that state since the companies weren’t “located” in that state.
Put simply: the lawyers trying to grift money by filing these lawsuits for the country of Mexico did a terrible job for their clients by filing a case without any chance of succeeding.
If the Constitution were followed, though, this case wouldn’t even have gone as far in court as it did, so, we still have some work to do to ensure that our rights are passed down to our children and grandchildren.