Caribbean Community (Caricom) nations have, in the past week, lauded a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow Mexico to sue a number of American gun manufacturers and a distribution company for allegedly facilitating the trafficking of guns in Mexico and fueling violence and pain.
Concerned about a spike in gun-related deaths, Mexican authorities sought to determine whether they could, in fact, sue American manufacturers to make them liable for the smuggling and deaths linked to alleged trafficking of weapons across the border.
A court in an original lawsuit had lost the case after a court ruled that Mexico’s local laws were barred by a legal concept referred to as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which indemnifies American producers from civil and criminal lawsuits if their products were determined to have been used in violent crimes.
Convinced they were onto something, the Mexicans pressed on and sought relief at the First Circuit of the Court of Appeal, which reversed the original ruling and cleared the way for manufacturers to face lawsuits relating to what they produce on a daily basis.
Several Caribbean countries, including the Bahamas and Trinidad, had accepted invitations from Mexico to join as interested parties in the suit. This week, governments are hailing the ruling, contending that the time has come for gun manufacturers to be held liable.
“The fact that the case will now move forward is gratifying and encouraging,” Bahamian Security Minister Wayne Munroe told reporters. “Of course, in any litigation, you often have settlements, and so a part of the case the Mexicans put is that Smith and Wesson should be more responsible in not supplying people who they know may be selling to straw purchasers. I think the prime minister’s decision and the government’s decision is vindicated by this decision and we look forward to the further conduct of the matter.”
Reacting positively as well was Trinidadian Prime Minister Keith Rowley. He said the ruling, even at this stage, should push manufacturers to act more responsibly.
“I feel satisfied that it was a good thing for Trinidad and Tobago to align itself with the arguments and the Mexican lawsuit because we face the same problem that Mexico is complaining about. Whatever the final outcome of this lawsuit, because it is a complaint filed by sovereign states being taken up by the U.S. judicial system, this will certainly cause gun manufacturers and distributors in the U.S. to pay attention and take pause as they shovel volumes of dangerous items into our countries,” Rowley told the Express newspaper. This was as he criticized the main opposition party for not supporting the effort.
Leaders had discussed the issue and the lobby for regional support at their summit in the Bahamas a year ago, even as a number of regional bloc member states—chief among them Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad—are reeling with gun violence-linked gang and other activity. St. Lucia, the Bahamas, St. Vincent, and Barbados have also been complaining about spikes in illegal gun uses.
Bahamian Prime Minister Phillip Davis had complained that 90 percent of guns involved in crime at home had come directly from the U.S. The decision in the case came at around the same period of stepped-up cooperation between the U.S. and the Caribbean, resulting in a number of arrests of U.S.-based Caribbean smugglers attempting to ship large quantities of weapons to the region.
“A critical element of the government’s effort to reduce violent crime in our country is cracking down on the proliferation of firearms, with particular focus on strengthening borders and entry points and on interrupting networks of illegal smugglers,” Davis said in a recent reference to the Mexican effort to take gun manufacturers to court.
