In 2021, the Mexican government filed a lawsuit in the United States against eight U.S gun manufacturers and distributors alleging that the gun manufactures “actively facilitated the unlawful trafficking of their guns to drug cartels and other criminals.” (download lawsuit petition below) According to the lawsuit, “70% to 90%” of “the guns recovered at crime scenes” in México came from the U.S. The lawsuit asks that in addition to its legal fees and award of damages, the court imposes requirements upon the defendants to help in stopping the flow of guns to México.
The lawsuit details one instance of three individuals who were indicted “for making multiple straw purchases in El Paso, Texas,” and court testimony in the Chapo Guzman case 2019 showed how El Pasoans and El Paso businesses actively participated in helping arm Chapo’s men with illicit guns. However, quantifying the number of guns from the United States, including those from El Paso, that were used to murder Mexicans has been difficult to ascertain because of the gun lobby that restricts lawsuits against American gun manufacturers.
Using the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce Act, which protects the gun manufacturers from lawsuits for the use of their weapons, the manufacturers hoped to be shielded by México’s lawsuit.
In January, an appeals court ruled that México may proceed with the suit. Earlier this month, 27 Republican prosecutors filed court documents asking the Supreme Court to intervene to stop the lawsuit from moving forward. The prosecutors want the Supreme Court to stop “a foreign sovereign’s use of American courts to effectively limit the rights of American citizens.”
Because of the gun lobby and the immunities provided to the gun manufacturers, data fueling mayhem in México is limited, especially when it comes to El Paso’s part in the killing of Mexicans.
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A data leak from México’s military by the Guacamaya hacktivist group in 2022 provides unprecedented access to how guns make it to México, including those from El Paso.
Among the 10 million documents in the hack leak includes the trace details of guns recovered at México’s crime scenes since 2018. According to the leak, “American straw buyers were tied to the most weapons as of 2022.” Gun trace data is not available to Americans because of the 2003 Tiahrt Amendment that “shield gun shops from scrutiny.”
But the hack now reveals in detail El Paso’s unprecedented part in the murder of Mexicans across the border.
The Stop US Arms to Mexico project seeks to reduce gun trafficking to México. In late 2022, it created a data set from the leaked data detailing the gun trace information for the recovered guns found in Mexican crime scenes back to where the guns were last purchased.
Their data analysis found that “the U.S. state from which most weapons were trafficked was Texas.”
The data for the guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes between November 22,2018 and December 11, 2020 lists that 16,936 weapons. Of those guns, 329 guns originated in El Paso. Twenty-five of the guns listed did not include the name of the store where the gun was sold.
According to the gun data, 42 weapons were sold at the Academy Sports store on America’s Avenue, out of the 304 guns sold in El Paso and found in Mexican crime scenes. There were several pawn shops listed, including Airway Loan, Benny’s Pawnshop, Cash America and Pawn Texas.
There were three crime guns purchased at three different Walmart’s in El Paso. El Paso gun stores include Sportmans Elite on Doniphan that sold 14 guns that ended up at Mexican crime scenes. Other stores include Gun Central on Gateway Boulevard and the El Paso Gun Exchange. One gun found at a crime scene in México was traced to an embroidery shop on the Gateway.