Antigua and Barbuda joins Mexico in a lawsuit against US gun manufacturer

Antigua and Barbuda has joined the Bahamas and two other CARICOM states, in a lawsuit filed by Mexico in the US Court of Appeal, in support of a US$10 billion suit to hold US gun manufacturers liable for the harm caused by their products.

The Bahamas said on Wednesday that it was joined by Antigua and Barbuda, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Human Security (SEHLAC).

Seven major gun manufacturers and one gun wholesaler and distributor were named in the lawsuit

The office of the Prime Minister in the Bahamas said the guns used in the commission of violent crimes in Nassau are not manufactured there but instead, are made abroad and illegally trafficked across our borders.

“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. Today, as part of this broader effort to reduce the impact of gun violence in The Bahamas, our country joined an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in the United States Court of Appeal in the First Circuit, in support of Mexico, who is appealing their case to hold US gun manufacturers liable for the harm caused by their products,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley said “Mexico has approached CARICOM asking us as independent sovereign states with the same problem to join the fight to test it in the courts of America to hold the manufacturers and distributors of handguns and assault weapons into our country, to hold them responsible for the mayhem that they have unleashed on our societies,”.

Adding, “But recently a couple of people had sued the gun manufacturers in America and won. So, the dam has cracked,” the statement continued

According to Rowley “in other words, you could just go and buy a firearm like how you buy bread. And once that becomes so, we Trinidadians are all over the place, they (the gun will) come to us from Connecticut, Alabama, Miami, Texas, and Georgia and they end up in Trinidad and Tobago,” Rowley said.