Mexico City — Mexico’s government filed a civil lawsuit against five gun dealers in the state of Arizona on Monday for participating in the trafficking of weapons into Mexico, the foreign ministry’s legal adviser said.
The lawsuit, seen by Reuters, names as defendants Sprague’s Sports, SnG Tactical, Diamondback Shooting Sports, Lone Prairie Hub Target Sports and Ammo A-Z.
“If we do not stop this large influx of weapons to Mexico, how could we stop the violence here?” foreign relations secretary Marcelo Ebrard said in a video shared on Twitter on Monday.
“If the US is asking us to support them — and this a good thing that we would work together to combat fentanyl, chemical ingredients, drug cartels — we also want them to help us reduce this influx of weapons that does us great harm.”
The move comes just more than a week after a US judge dismissed a separate $10bn lawsuit Mexico filed last year against 11 US gun manufacturers.
Last week, Ebrard said Mexico would appeal a September 30 US federal court decision that dismissed the country’s earlier $10bn lawsuit.
In 2019 alone, at least 17,000 homicides were linked to weapons trafficked from the US, according to that complaint.
Reuters
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