Lawsuit filed against gun company, Instagram and Call of Duty creator over US school shooting:
Families of Uvalde school shooting victims have accused the companies of wrongful death and gross negligence.
HOUSTON: Several families whose children were killed or injured in a Texas school mass shooting two years ago have filed a lawsuit against the gun maker as well as Instagram and video game company Activision for marketing the weapon, their lawyers said on Friday.
Nineteen young children and two teachers were killed in Uvalde on May 24, 2022, when a teenage gunman rampaged through Rupp Elementary School with an AR-15 assault rifle, the deadliest US school shooting in a decade.
The families are suing the companies for wrongful death and gross negligence, saying gun maker Daniel Defense, as well as Meta-owned Instagram and Microsoft-owned Activision, whose “Call of Duty” video game features the weapon, Marketed it to “insecure teenagers”. “The boys,” according to a statement from attorney Josh Koskoff.
Koskoff stressed that there was a direct line between the companies’ behavior and the Uvalde shooting because the gunman had purchased the gun shortly after turning 18, the legal age in Texas to purchase long guns such as rifles.
“Before he was old enough to buy it, he was targeted and promoted online by Instagram, Activision and Daniel’s Defense,” Koskoff said in his statement.
“This three-headed monster deliberately exposed him to the weapon, saw it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it.”
Activision released a statement saying that the Uvalde shooting was “horrifying and heartbreaking in every way” and expressed its condolences to the families.
He added, “Millions of people around the world enjoy video games without resorting to terrible activities.”
Meta and Daniel Defense did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Earlier this week, the Uvalde families reached a $2 million settlement with Texas City over what the Justice Department called a “serious failure” of police responding to the shooting.
Officers eventually shot and killed the gunman, but waited more than an hour before storming the classroom, where he was restrained.
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School shootings have become common in a country where about a third of adults own a gun and where rules governing the purchase of even powerful military rifles are lax.
