Families of the victims of the Uvalde shooting are suing video game makers and social media companies, accusing them of inciting mass murder.
The lawsuit, filed in California on Friday, names Activision, which makes the Call of Duty game franchise, Microsoft, which makes the Xbox video game console, Facebook parent company Meta and gun maker Daniel Defense.
The lawyers accused the companies of promoting gun culture among “anxious” boys, including the gunman in the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, who killed more than 20 students and teachers with an AR-15-style assault rifle.
The exact amount of damages being sought has not yet been disclosed, but the legal team is the same one that won a $73 million settlement from Remington over the company's role in the Sandy Hook shooting.
Lawyers who won a $73 million settlement for Remington's role in the Sandy Hook shooting are now suing video game makers and social media companies. The new lawsuit names Activision, maker of the Call of Duty series, and Meta, the parent company of Instagram.
Activision, meanwhile, released a statement saying it “expresses its deepest sympathies to the family and community that continue to be affected by this senseless act of violence.”
But the game-maker added that “academic and scientific research continues to show there is no causal relationship between video games and gun violence.”
On May 24, 2022, a teenage shooter with an AR-15-style assault rifle went on a rampage at Robb Elementary School, 80 miles west of San Antonio, Texas, killing two teachers and 19 fourth-graders from the city of Uvalde.
It was America's worst school shooting in a decade since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, in which a similarly emotional young man killed 20 children and six adults with an assault rifle.
The Uvalde shooter, who purchased a gun legally in Texas shortly after turning 18, posted a photo of a Daniel Defense DDM4V7 rifle on Instagram (above) just days before the massacre.
“There is a direct connection between the actions of these companies and the Uvalde shooting,” said Josh Koskoff, lead attorney for the Uvalde victims' families.
Koskoff said that long before the shooter was old enough to purchase the Daniel Defense AR-15 assault rifle used in the mass murder, “he was targeted and cultivated online by Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense.”
The shooter, who purchased a gun legally in Texas shortly after turning 18, posted a photo of a Daniel Defense DDM4V7 rifle on Instagram just days before the attack.
“This three-headed monster deliberately showed him the weapon, made him believe it was a tool to solve his problems, and trained him to use it,” Koskoff said.
In a statement responding to the lawsuit, Activision acknowledged that the tragedy in Uvalde was “horrific and heartbreaking in every way” but denied any responsibility.
“Millions of people around the world enjoy playing video games without resorting to horrific behavior,” the company said.
Last year, researchers at Stanford University's Brainstorm Institute reviewed 82 medical journal articles that they said “represented the entire range of respected literature and scholarship” to look for a causal link between video games and violence.
On May 24, 2022, a teenage gunman went on a rampage with an AR-15-style assault rifle at Robb Elementary School, 80 miles west of San Antonio, Texas, killing two teachers and 19 fourth-graders from the city of Uvalde, making it the deadliest school shooting in the past decade.
“Even considering the scope of action […] “Violence can be triggered in a variety of ways, ranging from a simple shove to lethal force,” said Dr. David Dupee, a Stanford psychiatrist and director of the institute. “These studies have not found a causal relationship.”
But a growing number of studies, including one published in the journal Social Affective and Cognitive Neuroscience in 2017, have found that people who frequently play violent video games are “less empathetic” than other gamers.
A related study in 2023 calls for longer-term studies involving brain-scanning fMRI technology to compare whether continued exposure to violent video games affects “empathy for pain.”
According to AFP, neither Instagram's parent company Meta nor Daniel Defense responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
“There is a direct connection between the actions of these companies and the Uvalde shooting,” said Josh Koskoff, lead attorney for the Uvalde victims' families.
While Instagram bans firearms advertising across its platform, the lawsuit alleges that the meth-owning app gave Daniel Defense ample opportunity to promote the weapons through “organic” content on its own profiles and through social media influencers.
“We refuse to be victims,” declared one of the gun maker's Instagram posts, alongside a photo of a person pulling an assault rifle from the trunk of a car.
The new lawsuit alleges that Meta effectively allows gun manufacturers to market directly to children through these indirect promotional posts, and accuses the company of “knowingly” enacting “weak and easily circumvented rules.”
The lawsuit described Activision's “Call of Duty” game series as a “slick marketing ploy.” [that] “It helped open up a new, younger consumer base for the AR-15 assault rifle.”
The lawsuit comes just days after Uvalde's family reached a $2 million settlement with the city over what the U.S. Department of Justice found to be “serious failures” in the local police response to the critical moment shooting on May 24, 2022.
After waiting for more than an hour, police stormed into the classroom and shot and killed the gunman, who had been hiding in a closet and lying in wait for the police.
About a third of American adults own a gun, and restrictions on purchasing even powerful military-style assault rifles are loose, making school shootings more common.
