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A law firm representing families of the victims of the May 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting has filed wrongful death lawsuits against Instagram parent Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), Microsoft-owned (NASDAQ:MSFT) videogame publisher Activision, and Daniel Defense – the maker of the weapon used in the incident two years ago.
The two lawsuits were filed on behalf of families and individuals represented by Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder PC and Guerra LLP. The cases allege that the three parties worked together to market weapons to teenagers such as the Uvalde shooter.
In one of the deadliest school shootings in history, exactly two years ago an 18-year-old former student at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde killed 19 students and two teachers with an AR-15 rifle manufactured by Daniel Defense.
According to the lawsuits filed on behalf of the families of the victims and several survivors, Meta’s (META) social media platform Instagram and Activision’s military video game series Call of Duty helped market weapons such as assault rifles made by Daniel Defense to adolescent boys.
“There is a direct line between the conduct of these companies and the Uvalde shooting,” Josh Koskoff, partner at Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder and attorney for the families, said in a statement on Friday.
The case against Meta (META) and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Activision was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. According to the lawsuit, the companies “through products that count millions of teenagers and pre-teens among their users…aided and abetted firearm manufacturers’ efforts to expand the market for their weapons by granting unprecedented, direct, 24/7 access to children.”
The lawsuit accuses Meta’s (META) Instagram of giving gunmakers “an unsupervised channel to speak directly to minors, in their homes, at school, even in the middle of the night.” Meta (META) did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.
Meanwhile, the suit alleges that the first-person style of play in Activision’s Call of Duty games “creates a vividly realistic and addicting theater of violence in which teenage boys learn to kill with frightening skill and ease.”
“The Uvalde shooting was horrendous and heartbreaking in every way, and we express our deepest sympathies to the families and communities who remain impacted by this senseless act of violence. Millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts,” an Activision spokesperson told Seeking Alpha in an emailed statement.
The case against Daniel Defense was filed in Uvalde County District Court. The lawsuit accuses the gunmaker of using social media and first-person shooter simulations to attract teenagers to its website. Daniel Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.
Friday’s lawsuits come two days after Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder and Guerra reached a $2M settlement with the city of Uvalde on behalf of 19 families of the victims in the school shooting. The families also announced a separate lawsuit against 92 individual officers of the Texas Department of Public Safety over alleged inaction on the day of the massacre.
