Quote:Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) spoke exclusively with Breitbart News Wednesday about his push to block the sale of Remington and other iconic American brands to Czechoslovak Group (CSG).

The other brands include Federal and CCI. All the brands are held under the umbrella of Vista Outdoor’s Sporting Products.

Vance has concerns about the sale due to links between CSG and the Kremlin, and he is asking the Committee on Foreign Investment to block the sale.

He explained his concerns in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Breitbart News has the letter, dated January 24, 2024, in its possession.

The letter says, in part, “[CSG has] a long record of wrongdoing and well-documented connections to American adversaries.”

Vance zeroed on in the sale of Vista Outdoor’s Sporting Products’ companies:

The transaction poses apparent risks to our national security. I urge you to initiate a full security review of the transaction and use every authority to mitigate the risks it poses … The dangers posed by the sale are not due to the transaction’s size or the consolidation of market power, however. CSG has a long and troubling record that should raise national security concerns, especially alleged ties to the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

…

We cannot afford for America’s supply of weapons to fall into the wrong hands. The CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] process is a critical tool to keep the American people safe from enemies who seek to exploit our domestic vulnerabilities.

“Until it can be proven that this transaction will not jeopardize our national security,” Vance concluded, “I respectfully urge you to deny the sale of Vista Outdoor’s Sporting Products business to the Czechoslovak Group.”

Quote:A $10 billion lawsuit by Mexico against U.S. gunmakers, alleging that the companies “deliberately” enabled firearms trafficking into the country, can move forward, an appeals court has ruled.

The lawsuit, filed by the Mexican government against seven American manufacturers and a distributor in 2021, alleged that the companies “deliberately facilitate gun trafficking” into Mexico, according to the Jan. 22 ruling issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit.

The complaint was initially filed at the federal district court in Massachusetts, which dismissed the lawsuit after deciding that U.S. gun companies were protected by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) against Mexican claims.

The PLCAA prohibits certain lawsuits against gun manufacturers and sellers in U.S. federal and state courts. The appeals court agreed that “PLCAA’s limitations on the types of lawsuits that may be maintained in the United States apply to lawsuits initiated by foreign governments for harm suffered outside the United States.”

However, the appeals court observed that Mexico’s complaint potentially alleges a type of claim that could be “statutorily exempt” from PLCAA rules.

“We therefore reverse the district court’s holding that the PLCAA bars Mexico’s common law claims, and we remand for further proceedings,” the court stated.

“We conclude that the complaint adequately alleges that defendants aided and abetted the knowingly unlawful downstream trafficking of their guns into Mexico.”

The lawsuit seeks $10 billion in compensation.

Jonathan Lowy, president of Global Action on Gun Violence and co-counsel for the Mexican government in the case, welcomed the appeals court decision.

“Today’s ruling is a huge step forward in holding the gun industry accountable for its contribution to gun violence, and in stopping the flood of trafficked guns to the cartels,” he said in a Jan. 22 statement.

“Not only did the Court recognize the right of another country to sue U.S. gun companies, it also pierced the unfair legal shield that gun companies have been hiding behind since 2005.”

Texas-based litigator Steve Shadowen said the court ruling “marks an important step forward in holding the gun industry accountable for its role in transnational arms trafficking and in obtaining justice for the victims of their unlawful business practices, the people of Mexico.”
‘Scapegoating’

Lawrence Keane, chief lobbyist and media spokesperson for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), disagrees with the decision. The organization is “reviewing our legal options,” he said in a Jan. 23 post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Mexico should spend its time enforcing its own laws & bring Mexican criminals to justice in Mexican courtrooms, instead of scapegoating the firearm industry for their unwillingness to protect Mexican citizens,” he wrote.

Kostas Moros, an attorney who represents the California Rifle & Pistol Association, called Mexico’s argument in the case “comical on its face,” according to an X post.

“The basic idea is US gun laws are causing violence in Mexico. But that country has six times our homicide rate. If some smuggled guns from here are the problem in Mexico, we'd have a much worse problem here,” he said.

“Mexico’s complete failure to bring cartels to heel is not the fault of the United States nor its Second Amendment.

“These cartels are extremely wealthy and would always be able to get a hold of firearms. They are billion-dollar sophisticated businesses, not random gangbangers. Plus, Mexico has long had very high homicide rates. This isn’t some new thing.”
Focus on US Gun Industry

In its lawsuit, Mexico states that while having strict gun laws, the country has the third highest gun-related deaths globally. Mexico claims that it has just one gun store in the entire nation and issues fewer than 50 firearm permits annually.

“The number of gun-related homicides in Mexico grew from fewer than 2,500 in 2003 to approximately 23,000 in 2019. The percentage of homicides committed with a gun similarly rose from 15 percent in 1997 to 69 percent in 2021,” the appeals court ruling states.

Mexico insists that the increase in gun violence “correlates with the increase of gun production in the United States” since the end in 2004 of the U.S. ban on so-called assault weapons.

“Mexico claims that between 70 and 90 percent of the guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico were trafficked into the country from the United States.”

Mexico’s claims have been opposed by a coalition of 20 state attorneys general who filed an amicus brief in the case seeking to protect U.S. firearms makers.

“Mexico claims that gun violence in its country increased because of the expiration of the U.S. assault weapons ban in 2004,” the brief said. “But homicide rates in Mexico declined in the three years after the assault-weapons ban ended and didn’t increase until Mexico declared war on its drug cartels in late 2006.”

It dismissed the argument that U.S. manufacturers are to blame for increased gun violence in Mexico.

This theory “rests entirely on the factual assertion that American gun manufacturers knowingly cause Mexican gun violence. But its theory falls apart under even cursory scrutiny.”

"Contrary to Mexico’s claims that American guns are ‘among the deadliest and most often recovered at crime scenes in Mexico,’ only a minority of guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico can be traced back to the United States,” the states argued.

“Among the American guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico, many were sold wholesale to the Mexican military and law enforcement and only ended up in cartel hands after soldiers or policemen deserted.”

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin told The Epoch Times in May 2023 that the lawsuit was “part of a broad strategy by anti-gun activists to try to shut down firearms manufacturing” in the United States.

“Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to protect American businesses from these kinds of frivolous lawsuits.”

Quote:The Supreme Court of the United States received and docketed an emergency application seeking an injunction against enforcement of Illinois’ “assault weapons” ban while the appeal process is ongoing.

The case is National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville, Illinois. The plaintiffs include the National Association for Gun Rights, Robert C. Bevis, and Law Weapons, Inc. d/b/a Law Weapons and Supply.

The plaintiffs seek an en banc hearing before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and an injunction against enforcement of the Protect Illinois Communities Act until the hearing is held.

The Supreme Court’s Office of the Clerk of Court responded to the emergency application by noting that Justice Amy Coney Barrett has ordered a briefing.

The Protect Illinois Communities Act bans the sale of AR/AK-style rifles in the state, allowing those who already own them to keep them as long they register the guns on a state database. The ban covers more than 160 firearms and Illinois residents have until January 1, 2024, to register those firearms in the database.

The emergency application is for National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville, Illinois, No. 23A486 in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Quote:On Friday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturned an injunction against Illinois’ “assault weapons” ban, deciding that AR-15s are not protected by the Second Amendment.

The preliminary injunction was issued in Barnett v. Raoul by U.S. District Judge Stephen P. McGlynn, a Donald Trump appointee.

McGlynn’s decision was appealed to the Seventh Circuit, where a three-judge panel decided 2 to 1 against the injunction.

The three judges were Ronald Reagan appointee Frank Easterbook, Bill Clinton appointee Diane P. Wood, and Donald Trump appointee Michael P. Brennan.

Easterbrook and Wood constituted the panel majority in overturning the injunction. They noted that Heller (2008) held, “[l]ike most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”

They went on to note that in Heller, the Supreme Court of the United States found that machine guns were not protected under the Second Amendment because they were not “bearable” arms, and that is “because they can be dedicated exclusively to military use.”

Easterbrook and Wood then focused on similarities they found between AR-15s and M16s, the latter of which can be fired in full-auto or three-round burst modes. They wrote:

The similarity between the AR-15 and the M16 only increases when we take into account how easy it is to modify the AR-15 by adding a “bump stock” (as the shooter in the 2017 Las Vegas event had done) or auto-sear to it, thereby making it, in essence, a fully automatic weapon. In a decision addressing a ban on bump stocks enacted by the Maryland legislature, another federal court found that bump-stock devices enable “rates of fire between 400 to 800 rounds per minute.”

They also noted that both guns use the same ammunition and “deliver the same kinetic energy.”

Judge Brennan dissented from the majority decision, stressing that the Illinois “assault weapons” ban fails if tested by Bruen (2022) because the ban has no historical precedent in American tradition.

Brennan wrote: “Because the banned firearms and magazines warrant constitutional protection, and the government parties have failed to meet their burden to show that their bans are part of the history and tradition of firearms regulation, preliminary injunctions are justified against enforcement of the challenged laws.”

The case is Barnett v. Raoul, No. 23-1353 in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.