Families of Uvalde school massacre victims sue Microsoft, Meta and gun manufacturers | Gun violence news

The families of the victims of a school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, have filed two wrongful death lawsuits: one against the gun manufacturer and another against two technology companies, Meta and Microsoft, for their alleged role in marketing the weapon used.

Friday's two lawsuits came on the second anniversary of the school massacre, one of the deadliest in U.S. history.

The gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, attacked Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, killing 19 children and two teachers and injuring 17 other people.

The defendant in the first lawsuit, filed in Uvalde County District Court, is Daniel Defense, a Georgia-based gun manufacturer that produced the rifle used by the shooter.

The second lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, targets Meta, owner of the social media platform Instagram, and the video game company Activision Blizzard, a subsidiary of Microsoft.

The lawsuit alleges that Activision's first-person shooter game “Call of Duty” played a key role in the shooter's mindset.

It was noted that the game's weapons are based on real models and that the shooter has been playing the game since he was 15 years old.

Call of Duty “creates a vividly realistic and addictive theater of violence in which teenagers learn to kill with frightening skill and ease,” the lawsuit states.

This, in turn, prompted the attacker to search for the weapon he used in the video game right after his 18th birthday, the lawsuit says.

It is also alleged that the shooter consumed pro-gun advertisements on Instagram that reinforced the violent images he saw in the video game.

“At the same time, the shooter was being courted on Instagram through explicit, aggressive marketing,” the families said in a statement.

“In addition to hundreds of images depicting and praising the thrill of combat, Daniel Defense used Instagram to praise the illegal, murderous use of his weapons.”

The lawsuit accuses Instagram of failing to exercise adequate oversight of its platform, thereby providing gun sellers “an unsupervised channel to speak directly to minors, in their homes, at school, even in the middle of the night.”

In their statement, the families claim that Daniel Defense and the two technology companies were jointly involved in a “plot to prey on insecure, adolescent boys.”

“There is a direct connection between the conduct of these companies and the shooting in Uvalde,” said Josh Koskoff, an attorney representing the families.

“This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems, and trained him to use it.”

Koskoff's law firm, Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, had previously represented the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut and finally reached a $73 million settlement with gun manufacturer Remington in 2022.

Daniel Defense is already facing additional lawsuits related to the Uvalde shooting. In an appearance before the U.S. Congress in 2022, the company's CEO, Marty Daniels, condemned the attack as “pure evil.”

However, in a statement that same year, Daniels also described similar lawsuits against companies like his as “frivolous” and “politically motivated.”

Activision also condemned the shooting in Uvalde, saying it was “horrific and heartbreaking in every way.”

“We extend our deepest condolences to the families and communities still affected by this senseless act of violence,” it said in a statement.

But “millions of people around the world enjoy video games without committing cruel acts,” it continues.

A video game industry lobby group, the Entertainment Software Association, also pointed out that people in other countries play video games without resorting to the level of violence seen in the United States.

“We are saddened and outraged by the senseless acts of violence,” the group said in a statement.

“At the same time, we discourage baseless accusations linking these tragedies to video games. These accusations hinder efforts to focus on the underlying problems and prevent future tragedies.”

Gun ownership is an important part of U.S. culture. The Second Amendment to the country's Constitution protects the right to “keep and bear arms.”

Earlier this week, families of Uvalde's victims agreed to a $2 million settlement with the small Texas town after the Justice Department found “cascading failures” in the police response to the shooting, stemming from training and communication problems.

A lawsuit was also filed in federal court on Wednesday against the 100 state police officers who were involved in the response to the shooting.