On May 30, 2022, a memorial was erected in Uvalde, Texas, for the 19 children and two adults killed in the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Yasin Ozturk | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The families of the victims of the 2022 Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting filed two lawsuits against the Instagram parent company on Friday. YuanActivision Blizzard and its parent company Microsoft and gun manufacturer Daniel Defense, alleging they collaborated to market dangerous weapons to impressionable teenagers, such as the Uvalde shooter.
Georgia-based gun maker Daniel Defense used Instagram and Activision Blizzard’s video game “Call of Duty” to market its assault-style rifles to teenage boys, a wrongful death complaint alleges, while Meta and Microsoft lax oversight and promoting this strategy without taking any action.
Meta, Microsoft and Daniel Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old gunman entered Robb Elementary School armed with a Daniel Defense rifle and trapped himself in an adjoining classroom with dozens of students, killing 19 children and 2 teachers. This was the first incident in history. One of the deadliest school shootings.
The complaints were filed on the second anniversary of the massacre by law firm Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, which represented the families of the children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in 2022 against rifle manufacturer Remington Dayton reached a $73 million settlement to start school in 2012.
The first lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that Meta’s Instagram provides gun manufacturers with “an unsupervised channel to speak directly to minors in their homes, schools, and even in the middle of the night.” It’s just symbolic supervision.
The indictment also alleges that Activision’s popular war game “Call of Duty” “creates a vivid and addictive theater of violence in which teenage boys learn to kill with frightening skill and ease,” using Real life weapons serve as models for the game’s firearms.
Screen image of “The Final Hour: Advanced Warfare”
Source: “The Final Hour: Advanced Warfare” | Facebook
The Uvalde shooter played Call of Duty — which, according to the lawsuit, features weapons including an assault rifle made by Daniel Defense — and was obsessed with visiting Instagram, where Daniel Defense frequently advertised.
As a result, he became obsessed with obtaining the same weapon and using it to kill people, even though he had never fired a gun in real life before, according to the indictment.
The second lawsuit, filed in Uvalde County District Court, accuses Daniel Defense of knowingly targeting adolescent boys with ads in an effort to gain lifelong customers.
“There is a direct link between the actions of these companies and the Uvalde shooting,” Josh Koskoff, one of the families’ attorneys, said in a statement. “The three-headed monster deliberately exposed him to the weapon, made him see it as a problem-solving tool, and trained him to use it.”
Daniel Defence already faces other lawsuits filed by some of the victims’ families. In a 2022 statement, Chief Executive Marty Daniel called such lawsuits “frivolous” and “politically motivated.”
Earlier this week, families of the victims announced separate lawsuits against nearly 100 state police officers who the U.S. Department of Justice said were involved in the botched emergency response. The families also reached a $2 million settlement with the city of Uvalde.
Several other lawsuits against various public agencies remain pending.
