“If you think fentanyl overdoses are a problem, if you think migration across the border is a problem…you should care about stopping the crime gun pipeline to Mexico.” says Jonathan Lowy. “Because all those problems are driven by the supply of U.S. guns to the cartels.”
Lowy, American co-counsel in the Mexican government’s blockbuster lawsuit against American gun manufacturers and five dealers, spoke in a December CBS “60 Minutes” segment, “The Iron River.”
Probably because the lawsuit touches the nerve of gun control, defenders of the lawsuit’s targeted gun maker, Smith & Wesson, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in. It did so in June, unanimously deciding to throw out one of Mexico’s lawsuits, although neither liberal nor conservative justices would win any prizes for accuracy in discussing the applicable principles. Samuel Alito, for example, relied on the far-from-lofty notion that “Mexican government officials are contributing to a lot of illegal conduct here.” And in dismissing Mexico’s lawsuit as improper due to the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act shielding gun makers, there was no recognition that parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook massacre had gotten behind that law’s shield when the parents won a lawsuit against Remington.
Mexico’s lawsuit was begun in 2021 by then-president Lopez Obrador, partly in reaction to a horrifying five-hour attack in Sinaloa by a heavily armed narcotics cartel militia reacting to the arrest of an infamous cartel boss. Seriously outgunned, as the documentary showed, Lopez Obrador was forced to order the boss’s release.
The matter remained a stunning embarrassment for Mexico, until sharp minds began putting the pieces together.
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