By Larry Keane
U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- Mexico is going to have to answer a few basic questions when their lawyers finally step in front of a judge to claim that U.S.-based manufacturers are somehow responsible for their own lack of law enforcement on their side of the border.
First question: where are all the firearms that went missing from the Mexican military? That would be those firearms supplied by U.S. manufacturers pursuant to U.S. State Department-approved export licenses to meet foreign defense contracts but have somehow walked off Mexican military bases.
The Allegation
Mexico is suing U.S. manufacturers for $10 billion in damages, alleging those manufacturers participate in negligent business practices and are responsible for “massive damage” that is “destabilizing” their country. Mexican authorities take no responsibility for failing to enforce their own gun control laws or acknowledge the fact that corruption by narco-terrorists is a way of life for many of their own government officials. Mexico is ranked as 124 out of 180 countries on a corruption index by the watchdog Transparency International. That put Mexico on par with Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Mexico claims in their lawsuit, according to Reuters, that over a half million firearms are illegally trafficked into their country in a deliberate scheme to undermine their strict gun laws in ways that would knowingly arm drug cartels, fueling murders, extortion, and kidnappings. Their lawsuit alleges that 68 percent of the firearms recovered are manufactured in the United States.
The Evidence
Mexico has just one firearm retailer in the entire country. That’s in the heart of Mexico City and is encamped in the middle of a military base. Still, guns are being recovered and it turns out that Mexico’s military is a source. Mexico’s Army is losing approximately 30 percent of its firearms purchased from U.S. manufacturers. Those firearms are being recovered in crime scenes across the country. Firearms manufactured in the United States and sold lawfully through military contracts aren’t the only ones. Other firearms from manufacturers based in Australia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Romania, and Spain are also being recovered at crime scenes.
The fact that these firearms are being “lost” by the Mexican Army is worth noting since it is only the Mexican Army that can purchase these firearms.
The report of these firearms going missing came from Mexican journalist Carlos Loret De Mola and was reported by Breitbart. That report also indicated that it is only the Mexican Army that can sell firearms and that an office called CENAPI, that resides within that of the Mexican Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Gomez, tracks firearms recovered at crime scenes but Loret De Mola claims that information is being suppressed because of Mexico’s pending lawsuit against U.S. manufacturers. CENAPI reportedly denied Loret De Mola’s request for information about recovered firearms in what is being termed as a way to cover up the Mexican Army’s role in gun trafficking.
Verdict Due
The gun scandal isn’t the first time Mexican military and government officials were incriminated for breaking their own laws, working with narco-terrorists, and fueling the violence within their own country. Mexican Gen. Juan Ernesto Antonio Bernal Reyes, the former candidate for to be the Mexican defense secretary, was arrested in Oaxaca on extortion charges in December 2021.
In October 2020, U.S. authorities arrested Mexico’s Secretary of Defense Salvador Cienfuegos for drug trafficking and money laundering charges. He was turned over to Mexican authorities after U.S. authorities succumbed to pressure to not prosecute and on a promise Mexico would investigate and prosecute the case. The charges against him were dismissed, however.
Mexican authorities only recently announced charges for seven individuals stemming from the ill-fated Operation Fast and Furious gun-running scheme where the Obama administration allowed firearms to be illegally trafficked across the U.S.-Mexico border only to not track them once they were in Mexico. That secretive operation was revealed in 2010 after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed and two firearms connected with the operation were recovered. At the time, U.S. authorities were aware of at least 179 firearms recovered at Mexican crime scenes and another 130 recovered in the United States.
Mexico lodged charges in the decade-old Operation Fast and Furious case against the seven which include the country’s former top police official, Genaro García Luna, security chief for Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón from 2006-2012, former Federal Police commander Luis Cardenas Palomino, a close assistant to García Luna and former drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. García Luna was arrested in Texas in 2019 by U.S. authorities for allegations he was protecting a drug gang. Mexico is currently seeking his extradition to face trial there. Palomino was already arrested by Mexican authorities for torture charges and U.S. authorities accuse him of taking bribes from the Sinaloa drug cartel. “El Chapo” Guzman was convicted in a U.S. court of drug trafficking and is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Colorado.
Mexican authorities confirmed that one of the rifles trafficked in Operation Fast and Furious, a .50-caliber rifle, was recovered in Guzman’s hideout. Mexico has named the manufacturer of that rifle as a defendant in their lawsuit.
It took a decade for Mexico to bring charges against Guzman, who is already sitting in U.S. prison after multiple escapes from Mexican prisons.
Mexico’s lawsuit against U.S. firearm manufacturers is a farce. The culprit for the lawlessness ravaging America’s southern neighbor isn’t in the manufacturing facilities in the United States. It is in the halls of their own government and within the ranks of their own military.
About The National Shooting Sports Foundation
NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org
Typically progressive approach to social pathology. Blame the implement and not the intent. This is the foundation of failed progressive public policy. All of the wars on the material world, the wars on drugs, wars on guns etc fail because they fail to address the motive force: criminal intent. Focus on the criminal and you will achieve results. Focus on the material and you get a heap of junk and a failed society.
Well said. Assurance of swift punishment is a deterrent.
Fear of the rope will take care of the dope!
And that, I hope, will help us cope! Most poetic!
I think I’m going to borrow that one! Thanks!
Countersue Mexico for 100 billion for drugs coming across the border and failure to control the cartels.
As long as they have dragged us into court already our lawyers have to have something to say, so… why not counter sue! What court is it in?
drugs, illegals 1trillion just for the ssi and use of our services and cleanup of illegal dumping by same illegals damages to families for unlicensed drivers uninsured the list is loooooooong
Why aren’t Ovomit and Creepy Sleepy Quid Pro Joe respondents? Buehler, Buehler……..
eric holder should be sent to mexico for trial
AND OBAMA, SWIFTLY!
If our government walks guns over the border, and Mexico’s government walks machine guns out of their installations, we ought to be able to walk machine guns to our homes. That would be fair.
Reason #1781435 to abolish all gun law infringements and abolish the BATF.
The Mexican military must be pissed that they getting competition and losing money from their illegal gun sales to the BATF and their illegal gun sales to Mexico.
the people in the military who sell guns are pissed that the stuff they have ordered to sell is stolen before they get it right out the back door of their office
“Damn it, some a holes stole the stuff I was going to steal, what the hell is wrong with people?”
Looks like woke has made it across the border and I will not be surprised to find the biden admin. more than complicit with it. I do remember when the atfe was funneling guns to Mexico, maybe they still do. False flag anyone? The last time I went to Mexico I was offered a military HK-93, full auto in 556, in return for smuggling a kid back to America and raising him. So the arms trade goes both ways but HK had nothing to do with it and is in no way responsible for the use of obviously stolen military… Read more »
why bother they wont listen, the Mexican army has enough zetas that supply their buddies that without arming the people of mexico internal war will not end
a 16 year old girl propositioned me with an offer of her and two younger sisters for the time i was there , i felt sick to my heart, failed government. country is crumbling under corruption. , some towns have armed up and are making their own space but the rest is a wasteland mexico city is so unsafe that the rich have mostly moved to us; broward county has an area of mexicans one of colombians and Venezuelans 100s of families some who still have businesses in their countries moved millions here for visas and safety for their families.… Read more »
30% of military weapons missing? what BS. plus; why would cartels pay $1K for any semi auto when they can purchase new full auto AKs and fly them in unmolested for less than $300 from neighbors further South?
mexican officials are just as bad as Biden.
they dont buy them, the people buying smuggled weapons are not linked to cartels or government they are people trying to protect their land and family the cartels have insiders in military and logistics and steal what they want from government
What?!, the Mexican people are acquiring arms to defend themselves? How is that so? Those weapons are illegal. It’s almost like the laws just don’t work.
When gun control spectacularly fails, as demonstrated in Mexico, it’s excused the same way as when communism/socialism fails: They either “didn’t do it right”, or “the wrong people were in charge” or “it’s all the fault of the US”.It can never be that the whole system is just wrong. Admission of failure is NEVER allowed. And the system in Mexico is what’s urged for us by gun controllers.
In the states where the people have armed up peace and prosperity are returning. gangs are kept out, federal government too
The court in which this matter is proceeding should demand a security deposit of an amount large enough to cover court costs and Defense attorney costs. Odds are this will go agaisnt Meciso (and from what I know it MUST) against the likelihood the Mexican legal team were to lose, then simply pack up their pwpers, board a plane back to Mexico and disappear…… leaving the falsely accused US gun manufacturers to cover their own legal and other costs. Mexicn individials, for the most part, are wonderful and noble people. But when they climb the ladder in government, they most… Read more »
Courtesy of Eric Holder? Or is he now too busy with voting manipulation?
I believe he has a cush job here in Kalifornia spearheading the effort to provide state-sponsored defense to illegal immigrants.
The only part of the Mexican government that hasn’t surrendered to the cartels’ offer of “plata o plomo” (silver or lead) is the Navy. That’s why, whenever you see a cartel member in cuffs, they are surrounded by big guys with MARINA (MARINES) on their tactical gear.
I’m remembering a story not too long ago where a heavily armed police unit got into a firefight with an army unit, because they were acting as security for two opposing cartels.
But we don’t dare call them a “Third World Sh*thole.”
Mexico sued Americans for $10B? We should sue Mexico for $100Trillion.
* Gvt-sponsored invasion-occupation-anchor baby breeding, at our expense.
* Steals US voting control & natural born citizen’s share of public wealth.
* Destroys liberty, schools, culture, quality of life, dignity.
* Jacks up cost of living, land, real estate, “housing”, privacy. Gridlock.
* Send Aztec-Mayan gangsters here to kill, maim & shit all over us.
* Diapers on the beach.
* Emergency rooms swamped before “covid”.
* $15-25k per year K-12 = $90-$150k/year per family of 6 kids.
* Most illegals are on some form of welfare.
* ETC
What is it that makes a mother choose to put lethal chemicals into her body in place of loving and caring for her children? What turns a morally conscious individual, albeit one of weak morals, turn to crime in place of finding work to support their family? It cannot just be “because they are criminals!” There is something deeply wrong such that someone born i to this hell cannot find their way out. Not every family that lives in the South Side of Chicago, or South Central L.A. wants to raise their children there. Why is it that they cannot… Read more »
Why people do what they do is to broad a topic for here. Good luck in your search.
Thanks, Hall Monitor Karen.
when the education system abdicates their roll, and produces illiterate un prepared people despair and fear is what they feal when they find they can not get a job that will feed and cloth them ,housing beyond their means , someone gives them a drug that lets them hide for a little while soon hiding from reality is all they have. saw waaaaaaaay too much of this dea victimizing victims.. good education is the key it builds confidence and self worth
There’s no political benefit to solve these socio-economic issues. It’s far easier to blame the guns and the drugs for the ills and lead efforts like the War on Drugs and the War on Guns.
The only entity in the U.S. that Mexico should be going after is the BATFE. The most egregious thing about this mess is the release of former Mexican Secretary of Defense Salvador Cienfuegos. The amount intel that he could’ve provided if his feet were held to the fire is staggering. The threat from Mexico was expelling the DEA and loss of of their oh-so-valuable “cooperation” in going after cartels. Fine, repurpose those resources to securing the border and let the cartels have Mexico. Oh and this capitulation happened under the almighty Trump. The decision to abide by Mexico’s threat was… Read more »
What capitulation? The first time that you mention a capitulation is when you decide to blame Trump in the last paragraph. More explanation please.
Ag William Barr gave in to the demands of the Mexican government to release Mr. Cienfuegos. Unless Barr had totally gone rogue, Trump must have been aware of this decision. which flies in the face of his “get tough on Mexican criminals and the Mexican government” campaign pledge. Feels like another case of the elites protecting one another. Notice the date on the linked AP story. The decision to release was announced 2 weeks after the election, which meant it went largely unnoticed with all the coverage of the election. Seems the announcement was timed so it wouldn’t have the… Read more »
Trump also knew or should’ve known Bill Barr was heavily involved in Ruby Ridge as Bush 1’s AG, got his pet FBI “Hostage Rescue” Team sniper Horiuchi off with impunity after murdering Vicki Weaver, thereby enabling Horiuchi to murder again at Waco.
Is it an accident Epstein was suicided on Bill Barr’s & Trump’s watch?
Wow, I didn’t know that. I don’t see how anyone in their right mind would consider appointing someone that toxic to any position of power, let alone the the head of the DOJ! If Trump was aware of Barr’s involvement in Waco and Ruby Ridge, that indicates tacit approval of what went down in those outrageous tragedies. As far as Epstein goes, Billary would have had him taken out no matter who was in the White House or DOJ. I see by the downvotes on your reply that some don’t like it when ugly truths about POTUS 45 are pointed… Read more »
Actually, the Horuchi prosecution was removed by order of a Federal judge to the Federal trial court, where the case was dismissed by the same federal judge.
because he would have been put on death row in state court, and should have been.state should have told feds this is in state crime stays in state court , it would put feds on notice that they can only have impunity in dc
Oh, I see what you mean by capitulation. Still AGs get a lot of autonomy. I don’t know about the should have known.
Interesting, though.
The autonomy of AG’s is a totally fair point. I was coming form the perspective that presidents generally get/take credit or are blamed for what happens on their watch. For all I know, Trump could’ve been furious about that decision and was planning to kick him to curb after the election.
Trump knew who Barr was before giving him the position. A simple google search showed it all.
“Our ATF partners…” -NSSF
NSSF needs to stop kissing BATF’s arse. All that does is empower the BATF!
Never happen since Sanetti went over & Rugerized it, although I think it was F’d up before that. Even worse now under RINO Keane.