U.S. gun makers urge judge to throw out Mexico's $10 billion lawsuit

BOSTON — A U.S. judge on Tuesday questioned whether allowing Mexico to sue U.S. gun manufacturers for facilitating the trafficking of weapons to drug cartels would open the door to other countries suing them, including Russia over firearms used by Ukrainians in the ongoing war.

U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor in Boston raised that prospect as he weighed whether to dismiss Mexico’s $10 billion lawsuit seeking to hold gun-makers including Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. responsible for a deadly flood of weapons across the border.

Mexico in a lawsuit filed in August accused the companies of undermining its strict gun laws by designing, marketing and distributing military-style assault weapons in ways they knew would arm drug cartels, fueling murders and kidnappings.

It said over 500,000 guns are trafficked annually from the United States into Mexico, of which more than 68% are made by the gun-makers it sued, which also include Beretta USA, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Colt’s Manufacturing Co. and Glock Inc.