Secret Squirrel has learned, through perusal of a CBS News item, that the Mexican Government,of it's present President,one Felipe Calderon, has retained an American law firm to explore filing civil charges against U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors over the flood of guns crossing the border into Mexico.Not that it matters any but there is a law in America, in effect,a law which has been applied
several times, The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,and this law, brought in under the Bush era,would bar that kind of lawsuit from the start. The law, passed in 2005 has resulted in several lawsuits against gun makers being dismissed.Sources familiar with the case say the law firm retained by Mexico - New York based Reid Collins & Tsai - believes the federal law won't stand in the way of their case.Mexico’s actions are a “novel approach,” in reality, such lawsuits have been used for decades as a tactic by anti-gun groups and governments in their attempts to bankrupt gun manufacturers and circumvent the political process.
That’s why Congress passed the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act” in 2005. This act protects firearms manufacturers, distributors, dealers and importers from suits brought about as a result of “the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended.” The outlook for a Mexican government suit looks dim; since the PLCAA was signed into law by President George W. Bush on Oct. 26, 2005, no federal court has allowed such a suit by a government plaintiff to go forward against a U.S. firearms manufacturer.
The Mexican government’s plans for a lawsuit extend at least back to November 2, 2010, when a contract with the law firm was signed. Unfortunately for the Mexican government, the possible lawsuit has come to light at the same time as diplomatic cables newly made available by Wikileaks, which have shown that drug cartels obtain much of their weaponry from Central American arsenals.
One such cable, recently publicized by Mexico City newspaper La Jornada, addresses a frequently heard claim about the origin of guns used in Mexico’s crime wave. The cable’s author writes, “Claims by Mexican and U.S. officials that upwards of 90 percent of illegal recovered weapons can be traced back to the U.S. is based on an incomplete survey of confiscated weapons. In point of fact, without wider access
to the weapons seized in Mexico, we really have no way of verifying these numbers.”
This information comes to light only weeks after another cable publicized by La Jornada revealed that 90 percent of the drug cartels’ “heavy armament,” such as grenades and rocket launchers, originates in Central America and enters Mexico through its Southern border with Guatemala. Bolstering these claims, IHS Global Insights reported on April 6 that the head of U.S. Southern Command, General Douglas Fraser, testified before the Senate that over 50 percent of the military grade weapons in the region originated from Central America.Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.
Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in
January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.
"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
Christopher Renzulli of New York, who has represented U.S. gun makers for fifteen years, says he believes this would be a difficult case for the Mexican government to win.It would make sense that the Mexicans and their legal friends couldn't win, not only due to the law being in place not even yet allowing suit, but,it is fundamental logic that the gun makers can't prevent somebody from selling or giving said guns to the Mexicans.But then Mexicans are hardly logical, and the law firm being what it is,will take anybody's money,for any case,obviously,considering they are taking up a case for the foreign government of Mexico,against America and American firms.Indeed, if the gun firms could and did,refuse to sell guns to Mexicans, the Mexican president would be suing claiming it was discrimination against Mexicans in America,and that Mexicans had the same rights as Americans in procuring guns, and whatever else could come to his mind,being what he is,intelligent,perhaps, or not, as is most certainly likely.Recall The Mexicans complained when America started building a high fence to prevent Mexicans from illegally entering the US.At that time they claimed this was discrimination against the Mexicans, in effect keeping them in Mexico,and illegally out of America,this was under then Mexican President, Vincente Fox.But we of course,see things differently, the fence would be a grand idea to continue round and about as it would keep Mexicans from illegally entering the United States, and of course, it would much more handily keep guns from getting to the Mexicans, which may irritate the Mexican President at this point.It seems that Calderon believes the guns enter Mexico from across the Mexican American border, either across in a reverse wetbacking fashion, or through in reverse fashion, the drug infiltration tunnels, or flown in by air seemingly passing any Mexican security to prtevent such things.The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry, issued a statement saying it “respects the work of President Calderon to willingly take on his country’s powerful drug cartels. However, we are
disappointed that he would seek to hold law-abiding American companies responsible for crime in Mexico.”The association also denied that most of the guns used for crime in Mexico come from the United States.
In either case, the drug lords,and gangs, are getting their hands on a great many guns, and using them as well in the pursuit of their favorite pass time in Mexico, the drug trade which they then pedal in to the United States,across the border. Calderon is not prepared to believe that the guns enter from,say, the sea ports, but it is known that many of the guns are actually European in origins, Soviet AK 47's,Belgian guns, even yet Israeli guns have shown up,guns of all kinds and types. Mexican authorities have investigated reports that some were supplied by arms dealers in Israel and Belgium.
The plot thickens,however, and here we do have an interesting development.In a related legal move, Mexico’s Attorney General is demanding the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives turn over the names of its agents who participated in its “Operation Fast and Furious.”During the covert operation last year, ATF agents allowed smugglers to sneak about 2,000 guns into Mexico so they could be traced to suspected criminals and drug cartels.Although the operation helped U.S. law enforcement agents identify criminals, it also resulted in some of the guns being used for murders and other crimes, according to Mexican police.Mexico’s Attorney General did not say why he wanted the names of participating law officers, but the Mexican news media is speculating he will try to sue them or press charges against them.So far, the U.S. Justice Department has refused to reveal the names of Fast and Furious agents.President Felipe Calderon expressed his frustration to CBS News correspondent Peter Greenberg: "We seized more than 90,000 weapons...I am talking like 50,000 assault weapons, AR -5 machine
guns, more than 8,000 grenades and almost 10 million bullets. Amazing figures and according to all those cases, the ones we are able to track, most of these are American weapons."Unquestionably some of the guns do come from America, the great majority of the traceable ones, as Americans guns are just that, traceable, the rest are not, not being American guns, and the vast majority of the guns are not American guns.Indeed, the grenades were not America,and as for Armalite, this was and is a weapon supplied, oddly enough, to many revolutionaries, by one Fidel Castro, and no doubt, a tradition continued by his brother,they're in to the more modern AR-10, but for Mexicans the Ar-5 will just have to do.They've also
seized many of the famous and prolific AK 47's. In short, the Mexicans have a problem, a problem which is beyond them,but it is not a problem of the Mexican selected American arms manufacturers,but rather those of foreign manufacturers whom the Mexican President does not choose to sue, nor blame.He's the American
equivalent of the Mohamed Al Fayed the British have, in short, perhaps if they give the Mexican President American citizenship, perhaps he will withdraw his ridiculous attempts to sue,for what ever.
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