During one of the deadliest chapters in its history, Mexico’s government devised a new strategy to curb gun violence; it filed two lawsuits.The first, in 2021, included U.S. gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson and one of their wholesalers. The second, filed a year later, against five U.S. gun stores, claimed they engaged in “reckless and unlawful business practices” that supply dangerous criminals.

An estimated 200,000 to half million U.S. firearms are smuggled into Mexico every year. Mexico asked American attorney Jonathan Lowy to help cut off the gun pipeline, known as the “iron river.”

“If you think fentanyl overdoses are a problem, if you think migration across the border is a problem, if you think the spread of organized crime is a problem in the United States, then you should care about stopping the crime gun pipeline to Mexico,” Lowy said. “And you need to stop it at its source. Because all those problems are driven by the supply of U.S. guns to the cartels.”

Mexico’s gun laws

Like the U.S., Mexico’s constitution grants its citizens the right to bear arms. But unlike the U.S., that right comes with a long list of restrictions. 

There’s also a big difference in the number of gun dealers. In the U.S., there are more than 75,000 active gun dealers, twice as many as U.S. post offices. While in Mexico, there’s just one gun store. It’s located in the middle of a heavily guarded military base in Mexico City. 

Before customers can even enter, they must show proof they’ve passed psychological tests, drug screens and extensive background checks. The store sells about 1,000 guns a month, mostly shotguns, small caliber rifles and handguns. 

Cartel gun violence in Mexico

The high caliber guns the cartels favor are not sold legally to civilians in Mexico. However, the cartels have no trouble getting them elsewhere. 

On Oct. 17, 2019 Mexican armed forces captured one of the most wanted drug lords in the world, Ovidio Guzmán López, the son of the former Sinaloa cartel boss known as El Chapo. What should have been a turning point in the war on drugs turned into a deadly, five-hour gun battle. Hundreds of cartel gunmen, outfitted for combat, doused soldiers with gunfire, took hostages and blocked entrances to the city with burning vehicles. 

Outgunned, and hoping to end the bloodshed, Mexico’s president at the time, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, ordered Guzmán released. This past March, 60 Minutes spoke with then-President López Obrador. Homicides and cartel violence soared during his six-year term and he said the U.S. was partly to blame.

“We have confiscated, in the time that I’ve been in government, 50,000 guns of high power, of high caliber,” he said. “Fifty thousand guns. And 75% of them from the United States.”

Three years after the deadly battle, Guzmán was recaptured in Sinaloa in 2023. His arrest sparked another gunfight that left 10 soldiers dead. 

According to documents obtained by 60 Minutes, 47 guns were seized after Guzmán’s capture, including an AK-47-style rifle traced back to one of the gun dealer defendants in Mexico’s lawsuit, Ammo AZ. 

How guns from the U.S. get into Mexico

When a gun is recovered at a crime scene, it’s the job of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to trace it. Tim Sloan was ATF’s attaché in Mexico from 2019-2022. As attaché he ran the ATF’s four field offices in Mexico. In 2019, an incident at a cartel ranch near Guadalajara made a lasting impression on him.

“There was dead bodies everywhere…There were 55 gallon drums with body parts in ’em,” said Sloan. “And all the weapons in that house came from the United States. All of them.”

Sloan says most of the guns the ATF traced in Mexico were sold directly to traffickers or to so-called “straw purchasers,” someone who buys a firearm on behalf of another person

“You’re offering a 23-year-old girl in Arizona $4,000, $5,000 just to go into a store and buy a gun for you,” Sloan said. “She’s going to do that. A lot of people are going to do that, especially if they have any addiction problems, but no criminal record.” 

If buyers do not have a criminal history, in certain states, they can buy as many guns as they want. After that comes the easy part, “just drive across the border, ” explained Sloan. 

Why Mexico is suing five gun dealers in Arizona

The ATF traced 50,000 American guns recovered in Mexico from 2015 to 2022 to gun dealers across the United States. Mexico’s lawsuit names just five dealers, all from one state: Arizona. Alejandro Celorio, the attorney who spearheaded the lawsuits for the Mexican government, said he believes those dealers are liable for facilitating the arms trafficking that empowers the cartels.

The five gun shops named in the suit were selected based on who Mexico believes are “the bad actors in this dynamic,” Celorio said. 

It’s difficult to know which gun dealers could be these so-called “bad actors” because U.S. law prohibits the ATF from publicly releasing specific gun trace information. But 60 Minutes reviewed internal ATF and Mexican law enforcement documents. According to those documents, 566 guns recovered in Mexico over a four-and-a-half-year period were traced back to the Arizona dealers named in Mexico’s lawsuit. Nearly 200 of the guns came from one dealer: Ammo AZ, located near Phoenix and owned by Veerachart “Danger” Murphy. 

Murphy declined to be interviewed by 60 Minutes, but after Ammo AZ was named in Mexico’s suit, he posted a response online. 

“If we were actually doing something illegal, ATF, FBI would have already shut us down. And I would be in jail,” he said in his online post. 

The ATF has said a crime gun trace does not necessarily indicate gun dealer wrongdoing.

Lowy, who has litigated gun cases in more than 40 states and is now co-counsel in Mexico’s case, said dealers are legally obligated not to sell guns to someone they suspect is a straw buyer or a trafficker.  

“The dealer’s main responsibility, in my view, is to pay attention to indicators to see if the person standing in front of them, on the other side of the counter, is a potential criminal or supplier to the criminal market,” Lowy said. 

Gun dealers who 60 Minutes spoke with say they’re running the needed background checks, filling out the required paperwork and doing what they’re supposed to do. They say it’s challenging to know sometimes if somebody’s a straw buyer, but Lowy disagrees. 

“It’s pretty obvious,” he said. “I mean, you see these multiple sales of AR-15s, you see these large cash payments, you see these persons coming back to the store every few days or every few weeks. I mean, these are not normal buying patterns.”

Most gun dealers in the U.S. act responsibly, Lowy said. 

“That shows that if you pay attention to these obvious indicators of trafficking and straw buying, you can actually stop supplying crime guns,” Lowy said. “The problem is these bad actors. And there’s no good reason why manufacturers don’t say, ‘Look, if you’re selling our guns use best practices.'”

It’s why Mexico filed its other lawsuit, which included gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson and one of its wholesalers.

Why Mexico is suing Smith & Wesson 

Under U.S. law, gunmakers have typically been shielded from liability when one of their guns is used during a crime. But Mexico is arguing the manufacturer is “aiding and abetting” gun trafficking to the cartels. Smith & Wesson called that allegation “not true.” Smith & Wesson did not respond to a request for comment from 60 Minutes.

“When manufacturers make the decision, ‘We’re going to sell guns through dealers no matter what their record is, no matter how many crime guns they’re selling,’ You know, that’s on them,” Lowy said. 

According to Lowy, gun manufacturers, dealers and distributors get trace data, though the ATF has said a crime gun trace does not necessarily indicate gun dealer wrongdoing.

Lowy explained, “Every seller in the chain knows if a gun they sold was recovered in a crime.”

If Mexico’s lawsuit is successful, it could open the door for more lawsuits, foreign and domestic, against the gun industry. Earlier this year, gun manufacturers successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case. They argued they could face years of costly litigation by another country that’s “trying to bully the industry into adopting a host of gun control measures.”

During his interview with 60 Minutes, then-President López Obrador said it was the responsibility of both the U.S. and Mexican governments to stop the gun trafficking. 

“But there has to be cooperation,” he said. “You cannot sell weapons to just anybody.”

Sharyn Alfonsi

Sharyn Alfonsi is an award-winning correspondent for 60 Minutes.

In 2021, jazz vocalist Samara Joy graduated from college. Months later, she released her first album. Now, she has three. She’s won three Grammys and is up for two more for her latest Christmas release. Talk about joy to the world—she has sold-out concerts all over America and Europe and is lining them up in Asia and South America. Music critics are comparing her to jazz royalty Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. Not bad for what she calls an accidental career. We caught up with her Christmas tour, singing what else?

You may know Samara Joy as a jazz headliner, but come December, she’s just one of the McLendon family. This year, her foray into Christmas music scored two Grammy nominations. 

It’s been a whirlwind few years. 

She’s as surprised as anyone at her head spinning success. After all, much of the jazz she sings was last popular a half century ago.  But with a voice as limber as a gymnast…

She’s given the old standards a cool new gloss.

Hard to believe that jazz was something she sort of stumbled upon.

Samara speaking during Purchase College concert: Freshman me had no idea that this was in store. Okay, that three years after graduation, I would be standing here before you like this.

This was a homecoming: the first time Samara Joy had returned to Purchase College in New York, where she studied jazz. 

It almost didn’t happen. She told us it was a toss-up between business or music.

Bill Whitaker: Well one of your professors told us that when you showed up for your audition that you only had one song prepared?

Samara Joy: I was like “this is the only jazz song that I know.” He allowed me to sing a hymn too, which was very nice of him. Very kind of him. Um but that was what I had to offer at that time.

Bill Whitaker: So what was it that pushed you on that path?

Samara Joy: I never wanted to regret it. I felt like I could always – even if I was in school for music, I could always get another job. But I – I just wanted to prioritize it first. 

Bill Whitaker: Worked out.

Samara Joy: Worked out. I’d say so.

She recorded her first songs in college—with help from her professors—and posted them online. 

Soon, she had a record deal. Critics say she sings like an old soul.

But when she got her first Grammy nominations in 2022, she went full Gen Z, sharing the moment with millions online.

Bill Whitaker: You danced? You, you shouted?

Samara Joy: Yeah, in New York, nobody cared. Nobody cared at all. They’re like, “Just another Tuesday” to them. 

And then… 

She won. Both. Including the Grammy for best new artist. 

Samara Joy during Grammy acceptance speech: Oh my gosh, I can’t even believe—I’ve been watching y’all on TV for like so long. So, to be here with you all, I’m so, so grateful, thank you.

Bill Whitaker: So where are you keeping all this golden hardware?

Samara Joy: They’re with my parents. 

Bill Whitaker: They knew you wanted to do this?

Samara Joy: Yeah. And my dad, you know, he’s a singer and a musician. My grandparents were singers. And my aunts and uncles. Music is a part of my family. It’s an integral part of how we express ourselves and share, you know, love for each other.

Bill Whitaker: So there was no way you were gonna be an accountant?

Samara Joy: Nope.

Joy celebrated online too. Her Instagram and TikTok accounts are pulling in a younger crowd, a rarity in jazz. They come for the ride and stay for the music. 

Now with a bigger band, Samara Joy’s third album, “Portrait,” is her most ambitious yet. 

She’s writing her own songs, drawing inspiration from the jazz canon of the 1940s and 50s. 

Bill Whitaker: And you’re how old now?

Samara Joy: Twenty-four. Oh gosh. I just turned 25. I forgot.

Bill Whitaker: What do you think when you hear yourself compared to Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald?

Samara Joy: When I first got to Purchase, Ella and Sarah were the first people that I listened to. They were part of my fundamental, you know, core and fundamental foundation.

Bill Whitaker: How do you make Ella fit you?

Samara Joy: Listening to her, and listening to all of these singers, I feel like it allowed me to, to shape my idea of what my role could be as a vocalist. Not just learn the melody, sing the melody and that’s it. But you really have to think like a musician and open your ears to what’s happening around you so that you can contribute to it and interact with it.

Christian McBride: Her voice is going to be remembered for a long, long time.

Christian McBride is a world-renowned bassist, we met him at Minton’s Jazz Club in Harlem. McBride told us, joy is a once-in-a-generation talent. He first heard her sing in 2019. He was a judge in a competition she had entered.

Bill Whitaker: And in comes Samara Joy and you’re goin—what?

Christian McBride: We see this young woman with this voice. She had such a mature sound and a way of having you believe what she was singing. We’re like, “Huh? Who—whose grandma’s in that little body, in that young body, you know?” 

She was born Samara McLendon. Joy is her middle name but she’ll tell you the McLendon name is her secret power. Her grandfather sang with the acclaimed Savettes, a gospel group out of Philadelphia. Her father toured with gospel superstar Andrae Crouch. Gospel was the lifeblood of the McLendon household.

Bill Whitaker: So how does gospel fit in with your music?

Samara Joy: It’s an inspiration and a—an influence that will never go away in my voice. And I don’t want it to. It’s been a part of my life, and in my ears, and in my voice um for so long that it’s just an innate part of who I am, I feel like and it just reminds me that this is, this is for a higher purpose. 

Christian McBride told us, Joy’s gospel upbringing gives her voice an emotional depth not all jazz singers can muster.

Christian McBride: In jazz, you get points for being smart. You get points for being creative. You don’t always get points for tapping into the emotional pool. And I find that um, all of my favorite singers who come outta church—Sarah Vaughan being one of them, Aretha Franklin, obviously all – all the way down through somebody like Samara, there’s that little thing. They, they can get here quicker, you know? 

Bill Whitaker: You grew up with R&B and gospel and you could’ve gone in that direction but you chose to go toward jazz, why?

Samara Joy: If anything I kinda felt at home with jazz, you know. I felt like I could still be myself while I was learning about all of this – this new language. I could still absorb it and then apply it in my own way. 

She was raised in a close-knit family in the Bronx. So how do you know a McLendon? Give ’em a mic. It’s a family joke, but everybody sang. All the time.

Joy’s father told us, his daughter was always experimenting.

Or mimicking artists on the radio. so when Tony McLendon joined us, we had to ask…

Bill Whitaker: So I understand that um, you two are pretty good at car karaoke?

Tony McLendon: Oh, yeah.

Bill Whitaker: Can you give us a little taste?

Samara Joy: (Bursts into laughter) We, okay, so we did go to the um, the Stevie Wonder concert. And on the way home we were singing along to one of my favorite deep cuts of Stevie.

Samara Joy: See, if—another thing about a McLendon, we don’t remember the words to anything.

Tony McLendon: We don’t remember.

We met more McLendons as part of Joy’s Christmas tour in Morristown, New Jersey…

…where she was joined by her dad, her cousins and an uncle.

No one is more pivotal to the McLendon family than its 94-year-old patriarch, Elder Goldwire, Joy’s grandfather. He told us, he was in awe of her. And you just know what happened next…

But nothing prepared us for the power Elder Goldwire unleashed on stage. His frailty vanished. 

The McLendon legacy looks to be in safe hands with Samara Joy. She may not have planned for a career in jazz but she told us, she thinks she’ll stick with it. 

Produced by Heather Abbott and LaCrai Scott. Associate producer, Mariah Johnson. Edited by Craig Crawford.

Bill Whitaker

Bill Whitaker is an award-winning journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent who has covered major news stories, domestically and across the globe, for more than four decades with CBS News.

Jazz vocalist Samara Joy, now 25, has won three Grammys. But when she auditioned for the jazz studies program in college, she says she knew just one jazz song.

That jazz song, and a hymn, got her through the audition in college, and now Joy is selling out concerts across the U.S. and Europe. 

“I never wanted to regret it,” she said. “I felt like I could always, even if I was in school for music, I could always get another job,” she said. “I just wanted to prioritize it first.”

The McLendon legacy

Joy may not have been read in on the jazz scene when she started at Purchase College in New York, but the Bronx native grew up in a musical family. And those Grammys she won? They’re with her parents. 

“Music is part of my family,” Joy said. “It’s an integral part of how we express ourselves and share, you know, love for each other.”

Joy’s dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles are all singers. Her grandfather, 94-year-old Elder Goldwire, sang with the acclaimed Savettes, a gospel group out of Philadelphia. Joy’s father, Tony McLendon, toured with gospel superstar Andrae Crouch. 

Gospel was the lifeblood of the McLendon household. Growing up surrounded by gospel music inspired Joy and influenced her voice, she said. 

“[It’s] been a part of my life, and in my ears, and in my voice for so long that it’s just an innate part of who I am,” she said. “It just reminds me that this is, this is for a higher purpose.”

Gospel influencing Joy as a jazz singer

Christian McBride, a world-renowned bassist who first heard Joy sing in 2019, said he heard something special in Joy’s voice. He was judging a competition Joy had entered at the time.

“She had such a mature sound and a way of having you believe what she was singing,” McBride said. “And we’re like, ‘Huh? Whose grandma is in that little body, in that young body?'”

He believes Joy’s gospel upbringing gives her voice an emotional depth not all jazz singers can muster. 

“In jazz, you get points for being smart. You get points for being creative. You don’t always get points for tapping into the emotional pool,” McBride said.

Joy intentionally leaned toward jazz professionally, even though she grew up with R&B and gospel. 

“If anything I kind of felt at home with jazz,” she said. “I felt like I could still be myself while I was learning about all of this, this new language. I could still absorb it and then apply it in my own way.”

Bringing her music to the world

Joy recorded her first songs in college, with help from her professors, and posted them online. Soon, she had a record deal. Joy released her first album just months after her 2021 graduation. 

She got her first Grammy nominations in 2022. Joy won both, including the Grammy for best new artist. 

Now with a bigger band, her third album, “Portrait,” is her most ambitious yet. She’s writing her own songs, drawing inspiration from the jazz canon of the 1940s and 1950s.

Music critics are comparing her to jazz royalty Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

“When I first got to Purchase, Ella and Sarah were the first people that I listened to,” Joy said of the comparison. “They were part of my fundamental, you know, core and fundamental foundation.”

From there, it was about making the music of jazz greats like Fitzgerald her own. 

“Listening to her, and listening to all of these singers, I feel like it allowed me to, to shape my idea of what my role could be as a vocalist. Not just learn the melody, sing the melody and that’s it,” Joy said. “But you really have to think like a musician and open your ears to what’s happening around you so that you can contribute to it and interact with it.”

Bill Whitaker

Bill Whitaker is an award-winning journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent who has covered major news stories, domestically and across the globe, for more than four decades with CBS News.