Liberal billionaire George Soros bankrolls an anti-gun group that sues American gun manufacturers on behalf of Mexico and other foreign governments, a controversial legal strategy that gun rights advocates call an "affront to the sovereignty of the United States of America."
Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF) gave $300,000 to Global Action on Gun Violence (GAGV) in 2023 for a two-year "general support" grant, according to unreported records.
GAGV, which formed in 2022, registered as a foreign agent of Mexico the same year to represent the country in a $10 billion lawsuit against Smith & Wesson, the Tennessee-based gun manufacturer. It’s part of a novel legal strategy that GAGV "pioneered" in hopes of generating "international pressure to reform the gun industry," as GAGV cofounder Elizabeth Burke put it.
OSF, which pours hundreds of millions of dollars a year into a variety of left-wing causes, provided a significant boost to GAGV’s operations, and thus its legal work for Mexico. The OSF donation is the largest known grant to GAGV to date, and made up one-third of all donations it received in 2023. The Mexican government paid $250,000 to GAGV for its legal work the same year, according to filings submitted to the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R., N.Y.), a gun rights proponent, called Soros’s funding for GAGV a "troubling" development and part of a "foreign-led attack" on American gun companies.
"I opposed Mexico’s lawsuit from the start and joined an amicus brief to the Supreme Court because this case is an assault on our sovereignty and an effort to blame U.S. manufacturers for cartel violence," Tenney told the Washington Free Beacon.
"Americans should not accept politically connected nonprofits bankrolling a foreign government’s attempt to undermine our laws and constitutional rights."
Tenney and 37 other congressional Republicans filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in 2023 in opposition to Mexico’s lawsuit against the gun makers. GAGV, on behalf of Mexico, argued American gun companies are liable for weapons transported from the United States to Mexico—weapons Mexico says end up in the hands of violent drug cartels.
The gun companies and their supporters reject the claim and say the Mexican government alone is liable for failing to police the cartels.
Republicans, in their amicus filing, said Mexico’s claim "disrespects the U.S. Constitution and U.S. law" by trying to impose Mexico’s gun laws on the United States. "Mexico’s lawsuit is an affront to the sovereignty of the United States of America," the lawmakers wrote.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled in favor of Mexico in that case, allowing its lawsuit against Smith & Wesson to continue. The Supreme Court heard the case, and unanimously sided against the Mexican government. But that ruling has not deterred GAGV, which pledges to continue its litigation strategy.
"The decision is narrow, and leaves the door open for future liability," GAGV said in a briefing after the Supreme Court decision.
"GAGV is continuing its fight to reform and hold accountable bad actors in the gun industry who supply the crime gun market," says GAGV’s website.
GAGV registered as a foreign agent of the Bahamas in June 2024 to "to investigate, analyze, advise and litigate actions" in order to "reduce firearms trafficking to, and gun violence" in the Caribbean nation.
The organization has filed litigation in other countries against Smith & Wesson and other gun companies, hoping that those nations’ lack of constitutional rights for gun ownership will help their legal fights. GAGV represents several families in a class action lawsuit in Ontario, Canada, against Smith & Wesson, and in 2023 appealed to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to link "lax U.S. gun laws" to human rights abuses in its annual Human Rights Council report.
GAGV did not respond to a request for comment. "We issued this grant because we want to curtail cartel and gang violence and cut off the flow of weapons that is enabling drug trafficking, which is killing American citizens," an OSF spokesperson told the Free Beacon.
GAGV has used other traditional lobbying tactics on behalf of Mexico, according to its foreign agent filings. In March 2024, GAGV representatives met with then-president Joe Biden's White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention to discuss "gun policies and gun violence prevention."
That same month, GAGV organized a forum with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) and Alejandro Celorio, legal counsel for Mexico’s foreign ministry. Raskin hailed the GAGV lawsuit on behalf of Mexico as "landmark litigation" and said "we are deeply invested in [its] success."
