In August, Mexico sued the U.S. in federal court over the “torrent” of illegal arms it sells to violent drug cartels, leading to thousands of deaths and continuing to fuel gang wars. 

The $10 billion suit claims that divisions of Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Colt’s Manufacturing Company, Glock Inc., Sturm, Ruger & Co., and others knowingly encourage illegal arms trafficking into the country. 

Now, just in time for the launch of National Gun Violence Survivors Week, 12 U.S. states—along with Washington D.C., Antigua, Barbuda, and Belize—have given their support to Mexico and filed separate suits demanding that a federal judge in Boston not dismiss the suit.  

“Violent crime has gravely harmed [Latin American and Caribbean] nations and their citizens, especially in recent years. A substantial portion of this violence has been perpetrated using firearms unlawfully trafficked from the United States,” wrote attorneys for the two countries in the brief.

“Unlawful trafficking of American firearms must be curtailed at its source: the U.S. gun industry. The gun manufacturers and distributors from a single nation must not be permitted to hold hostage the law-abiding citizens of an entire region of the world,” they added.

Of course, gun companies argue that Mexico has failed to prove that the violence could be attributable to them and that the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce Arms Act (PLCAA) protects them from suits when their product is misused, alleging that firearms “are not only lawful but constitutionally protected in the United States.”

“At bottom, this case implicates a clash of national values,” the companies argued, according to Reuters. “Whereas the United States recognizes the right to keep and bear arms, Mexico has all but eliminated private gun ownership.”

“The Amici States—Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Oregon—have a strong interest in preserving the remedies afforded by state common law and by state statutes,” the attorneys general of the states wrote.

“We also have a paramount interest in preserving all lawful tools — including statutory and common law remedies for unlawful conduct — to deter gun violence within our borders,” they added.

Mexico has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, but its proximity to the U.S. and the pay-for-play of its government have allowed gun companies to skirt the laws and handily arm the cartel.

According to the Mexican government, at least 17,000 murders in 2019 were connected to arms trafficking. Authorities estimate that more than 2.5 million guns have crossed the southern border of the U.S. in the last decade. In 2020, there were more than 43,000 murders. 

“The arms industry, like the drug industry, is fascinating because they move their products with the logic of globalized capitalism and the connections of their products. The big difference is that the weapons have serial numbers and can be traced,” Ioan Grillo, author of Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels, told NBC News. 

 According to Arms Control Association, how President Joe Biden’s administration reacts to this case is significant. Although the U.S. government is not named in the lawsuit, the administration has called for Congress to repeal the PLCAA and championed a domestic assault weapons ban.

“The case also may draw fresh attention to a Trump-era rule change that removed export oversight of semiautomatic assault weapons from the State Department, which administers the U.S. Munitions List, and transferred it to the Commerce Department, which oversees the Commerce Control List. The switch means the process is less transparent because Congress does not receive notifications of potential sales,” as reported by Arms Control Association. As of yet, Biden has not reversed this change. 

“The priority is that we reduce homicides,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said, adding that the lawsuit was another piece of the government’s efforts against guns. “We aren’t looking to change American laws.”