Mexico wants to sue U.S. gun makers

[Viva_La_Revolution]

Source: cbs

CBS News has learned that the Mexican Government 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.

Sources say Mexico's frustration with U.S. efforts to stop the flow of weapons has pushed them into this novel approach. The law firm is looking at charges that may include civil RICO. The contract was signed on November 2, 2010 by a representative of Mexico's Attorney General, at their Washington embassy.

On November 5, 2010 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."




Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20056210-10391695.html

[jpak]

1. but...but...but...the NRA/GOP sez the US govt. supplies all the guns to Mexican drug cartels!!11

Issa and Grassley sed so!!11

I guess they told a fib

yup

[AtheistCrusader]

8. Explain the 8,000 grenades.

They don't sell those to the public in the US.

If there is evidence of the manufacturers selling these things DIRECTLY to the cartels/gun runners, then yeah, sue away, but they'd be in for a lot more than just civil charges for it.


I won't hold my breath on that evidence. Willing to bet, of the grenades, specifically those from the US, they were 'leaked' from the US government directly somehow or the Mexican Government itself leaked them once our government sold them to Mexico (or we sold them to the Mexican Government from the manufacturer directly in an approved sale).

[jpak]

11. stolen from the Mexican army - whine on

yup

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Point me to 'fully automatic AR-15's' for sale in the US.

There are precious few, not 40-50 THOUSAND, and they command prices upwards of $25k each (and are actually M-16's, not AR-15's).


But don't let those facts get in your way.

[AtheistCrusader]

14. And don't think I didn't notice you ignore the issue of the GODDAMN GRENADES

which cannot simply be purchased at your local gun shop.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. You know what is so damn funny?

the grenades that have been mostly found were frags from American manufacture or European. Given the Army likes Russian gear...

That said, remember the bomb house here in San Diego? They ended up blowing the house, that's how dangerous the place was... I am sure they should have asked a few questions. One of the things these camper was making was... grenades.

Then there is the story of the SEAL in Denver who was arrested for... yes selling gear that went missing from our current operations in the sand box.

Yep some are coming from stolen army stores... but I am betting NOT all.

Oh and the usual but show me auto AR-15s... anybody who knows anything knows how damn fucking easy it is to convert a weapon. No, not legal... but it is a joke, so much that anybody who is trained in gunsmithing can do that.

But the usual suspects think it is simple, the AR-15s are coming from Bulgaria... yep that's the ticket!

[AtheistCrusader]

21. handmade grenades are not exactly the same thing as the 40mm launcher grenades we so often see

sitting on the 'trophy tables' for photo ops.


"Then there is the story of the SEAL in Denver who was arrested for... yes selling gear that went missing from our current operations in the sand box."
And we can legislate against or regulate that further HOW exactly?


A 'converted' AR-15 IS a M-16, pre 1986. Post-1986, it's a major bitch, and it's different for every manufacturer. You would have to fabricate bolt, bolt carrier, and 4-5 components from the trigger group. Good luck with that. Cheaper to get a shitload of REAL DEAL AK-47's from any number of countries, through a less-watched border than ours.
The AR-15's *are* mostly coming from the US one way or another. Some are certainly straw purchases (and calling them machine guns is moronic). Some are actually M-16's, 'leaked' by criminals within the Mexican Army/Police, or the American Army/Government, as well as semi-auto AR's.


I would never say ALL of these weapons are coming from any one source. Quite a lot of them are simply coming from sources not open to regulation, unless you want to forbid arms sales from US manufacturers to the Mexican army or police, or Government transfers from the US Government to the Mexican Government for distribution to police or military.

Mexican Police and Army do not get 'outgunned' by American civilian weapons. The proposition is completely absurd.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Mexican cartels' familiar weapons

Grenades made in the United States and sent to Central America during the Cold War have resurfaced as terrifying new weapons in almost weekly attacks by Mexican drug cartels.

Sent a generation ago to battle communist revolutionaries in the jungles of Central America, U.S. grenades are being diverted from dusty old armories and sold to criminal mafias, who are using them to destabilize the Mexican government and terrorize civilians, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials.

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/07/mexican-cartels-familiar-weapons.html

That be El Salvador, Nicaragua, and a few other countries... The Zetas, among others, are spreading south.

That is one place where they are coming from.

Another, like it or not, is the US.

And yes, a third, from Mexican Armories

I know, it could never ever happen.

I know that I imagined the full auto fire by the way...

So are the cops these days,,, or the paramedics, or the rest.

On the bright side, Mexicans are FED UP... and yes it is moving north.

And since we have decided to fight this damn war, but refuse to pay taxes... I am so damn fucking glad I will no longer be on the front lines for any of this crap... oh wait, these guys don't care...

So soon (relatively speaking) this might not be just theory for you either.

I get fucking tired of this crap, mostly because this war is being fought at the insistence of OUR OWN FRACKING government. And yes, OUR GUNS DEALERS have a real clear role in this... camino de hormigas, try the google.

[applegrove]

23. LOL!

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Yes foreign governents can sue

yes this will end up at the USSC... and yes the NRA will try to remove standing.

By the way, 3,2, 1 for the usual suspects.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. The only way this has merit

is if the manufacturers or the distributors inside the US separately, or together conspired to sell these weapons directly to the cartels.


So far, I see little evidence of this.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

19. Any suit will have to be in accord with US law and I do not see and actionable tort here

Additionally there is specific protection for weapon manufacturers here in the US.

[slackmaster]

20. A US gun manufacturer can be sued for selling defective weapons, false advertising, etc. but not...

...for misuse of their products by criminals.

[damntexdem]

3. I wish them good luck.

But that's unlikely with the RW bias in U.S. courts.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

4. Those guns have been going into Mexico since at least in the

early seventies, that's when the dealers started trading guns for grass.
The guns were cheap then and would fetch a lot of kilos for just one gun.
Am I giving away secrets.

[Arctic Dave]

5. Do you have any other bedtime stories?

Or is this one on the fly?

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

6. Just relaying information.

[valerief]

7. Woo hoo! Do it, Mexico, do it! nt

[AtheistCrusader]

10. Good.

Let's get this bullshit over with.

It's going to net a few gun dealers with shoddy records/sales procedures that should be preventing straw purchases, and that's it.

They'll cork that and realize, they still have a massive problem with new NFA type weapons coming from other countries like NK, or weapons that are leaking from the Mexican Government itself.

But yes, indeedy-do. Let's get this over with.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

17. And look at who the large money changers are, our own banks.

[LaPera]

12. Good luck Americans can't even get past the slimy republican judges-Just ask Ecuador vs Chevron

[Edweird]

15. Epic lulz are on the way....

[slackmaster]

16. Mexico doesn't have standing to sue corporations in the USA for the acts of Mexican criminals

Basic legal issue FAIL.

Machine guns and grenades?!?!? They must be kidding.

[Keith Bee]

22. Damn Right!

:patriot:!

[Igel]

25. All, some, most of some.

That is what Calderon winds up alleging.

All the cases. Well, not really--just the weapons they can track. Well, not really, just most of the ones they were able to track.

Originated in the US. What are the numbers? (Last time, not great.) Did they manage to track the routes--i.e., how did they get out of the US, what happened after they were shipped from the manufacturer. Or were they even manufactured in the US, as is the case with some of the guns mentioned last this bobbed to the top of the cesspool?