Uvalde Texas School Shooting
A curtain blows in an open window of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, following a school shooting in 2022. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

On the second anniversary of the Robb Elementary School attack, families in Uvalde pursued further legal action, suing Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram, and Activision Blizzard, the maker of Call of Duty, claiming these companies bear responsibility for products used by the teenage gunman, AP News reports.

The families also filed a new lawsuit against Daniel Defense, the manufacturer of the AR-style rifle used in the May 24, 2022, shooting, adding to the existing lawsuits against the company. This action coincided with the small Texas city gathering to mourn the anniversary of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, where the gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. Officers confronted and shot the attacker after waiting over an hour to enter the fourth-grade classroom.

Josh Koskoff, an attorney for the families, stated, “There is a direct line between the conduct of these companies and the Uvalde shooting. 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.”

Additionally, some of the same families had earlier filed a $500 million lawsuit against Texas state police officials and officers involved in the delayed law enforcement response on that day. Over 370 federal, state and local officers responded but waited more than an hour to confront the shooter inside the classroom, as students and teachers lay dead, dying or wounded.

These lawsuits are not the first to accuse technology companies of influencing or radicalizing mass shooters. Families of victims from a May 2022 attack on a Buffalo, New York, supermarket have also sued social media companies, including Meta and Instagram, over platform content.

The lawsuit against Georgia-based gun-maker Daniel Defense was filed in Texas by the same 19 families who sued earlier. The lawsuits against Meta and Activision Blizzard were filed in California, involving additional families of victims from the attack.

Activision Blizzard described the Uvalde shooting as “horrendous and heartbreaking,” expressing deep sympathies to the affected families and communities. Meanwhile, a video game industry trade group also disputed the connection between video games and violence, citing research showing no link.

The Entertainment Software Association stated, “We are saddened and outraged by senseless acts of violence. At the same time, we discourage baseless accusations linking these tragedies to video gameplay, which detract from efforts to focus on the root issues in question and safeguard against future tragedies.” They pointed out that millions of people play video games without resorting to real world violence or attacks.

The amount of damages sought in the new lawsuits was not immediately clear. According to the lawsuits, the Uvalde shooter had played Call of Duty since he was 15, including a version that allowed practice with the rifle he used at the school. The families accused Instagram of inadequate enforcement of its rules against marketing firearms and harmful content to children.

The shooter reportedly opened an account with Daniel Defense before his 18th birthday and purchased the rifle as soon as he legally could. The families’ attorneys claimed, “Simultaneously, on Instagram, the shooter was being courted through explicit, aggressive marketing. In addition to hundreds of images depicting and venerating the thrill of combat, Daniel Defense used Instagram to extol the illegal, murderous use of its weapons.”

Daniel Defense and Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment by the AP. In a 2022 congressional hearing, Daniel Defense CEO Marty Daniels called the Uvalde shooting “pure evil” and “deeply disturbing.”

A separate lawsuit filed by different plaintiffs in December 2022 against local and state police, the city and other school and law enforcement agencies seeks at least $27 billion and class-action status for survivors. At least two other lawsuits have been filed against Daniel Defense.

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44 COMMENTS

  1. The only people that should be sued are the Uvalde police. But they are protected by qualified immunity and have no duty to protect you whatsoever. If the police arrested all those kids they would’ve had more rights, because then at least the government would have to care for them. But they were just in a government school and not prison, so screw them.

    • The school as well for not securing their doors properly.

      That said this is a sue everyone and see what sticks lawsuit. The party I see absent/I’d be curious about is pharma. Was the shooter on any psychotropic drugs or withdrawn from any at the time of death?

        • This is not the first school shooting so the warning labels were there. That said, it all Circles back to parents who failed to verify the school they left their children in care of was capable of dealing with, “what ifs.” Obviously the school was not capable and unless the parents can produce evidence they contacted the school about Security it’s nothing more than the usual blame everyone but themselves. The buck stops with the Uvalde parents like it stops with parents who fail to buckle their children in a vehicle and after a crash they stoop to sue the car maker, etc.

      • They are certainly throwing a lot of poop at the wall to see what sticks.

        I agree with starting with the school board who allowed a security door to be kept unlocked for easy access.

      • Having been off and on several different types of antidepressants since long before they even put a black box warning on them,

        I can tell you that they don’t necessarily turn you into a school shooter.

        It might have something to do that for some people, as a side effect, particularly in children/teens (actually the major risk is suicide not homicide). It certainly didn’t do that for me.

        Going on and off them can be annoying for a lot of other reasons.

        And there really isn’t a good way to predict who’s going to have a couple weeks of the 💩 and who’s going to turn psycho.

        My best guess is that the kids who do that probably have some other (possibly unidentified) issues in play involving impulse control, possibly some other things as well involving homicidal ideations, likely are social outcasts, and they are in that phase where the drugs have kicked in enough that they are no longer moping on the couch all the time, but haven’t kicked in enough to start treating things yet. I’ve had some drugs take 6 months to kick in fully, but 4-6 weeks is pretty standard for most SSRIs.

      • The major obvious party needing to be sued…..the parents, for improperly imprinting their product into a Defective Citizen versus a Productive Citizen. Liked the Michigan Crumbley case where parents were held responsible for contributing to kid’s actions. Ala, if kid does the crime, parents share the time. Recall the Uvalde shooter may have been grandparent raised, but parents, unless dead, are somewhere still responsible for kid’s actions until reaching majority.
        Libturds want to sue gun manufacturers for the destruction caused by their products, only tools for good or bad, but their products never act…are only used improperly by Defective Citizens. Surprised that with all the lawyereese, warnings, cautions included in the box with new guns that there is not a chastisement……”Not to be used to kill kids.”

  2. It’s the same ploy used against Remington (which resulted in massively expensive litigation that the insurer for the bankrupt company did not want to pay for) alleging that “the marketing made him do it.” The claim that the shooer “opened an account” with Daniel Defense is a red herring. DD did not sell him the rifle directly ; it had to be shipped to an FFL for transfer after completion of a 4473. Presumably this young man had no disqualifying record, so how was DD supposed to know or should have known that he was a dangerous psychopath? Last but not least, is there any real science making a connection between marketing materials and subsequent illegal conduct? If there is no connection between video games and conduct, I fail to see how there could be a connection with print or on-line advertising.

    • Pretty sure the remington suit relied on Connecticut laws regarding advertising, i suspect that Texas has no such stupid law so the families are rightfully SOL, and frankly DD should be allowed to sue them and take them for every dime and then said families should be deported to cali

      • Yes and no. The PLCAA excludes civil actions (in part) as follows:

        (A) I N GENERAL.—The term ‘‘qualified civil liability
        action’’ means a civil action or proceeding or an administra-
        tive proceeding brought by any person against a manufac-
        turer or seller of a qualified product, or a trade association,
        for damages, punitive damages, injunctive or declaratory
        relief, abatement, restitution, fines, or penalties, or other
        relief, resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of
        a qualified product by the person or a third party, but
        shall not include—
        (i) an action brought against a transferor convicted
        under section 924(h) of title 18, United States Code,
        or a comparable or identical State felony law, by a
        party directly harmed by the conduct of which the
        transferee is so convicted;
        (ii) an action brought against a seller for negligent
        entrustment or negligence per se;
        (iii) an action in which a manufacturer or seller of a qualified product knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product, and the violation was a proximate cause
        of the harm for which relief is sought, including….

        How proximate cause is established from a violation of a consumer protection statute regulating advertising for a nondefective product is a mystery to me.

    • 30-40 years ago there was a handful of poor studies that showed a correlation between video games and violence but 10-20 years ago few more studies came out with most saying they cannot find any correlation.

        • Black Sabbath was a contemporary Christian group that sang about God’s love and encouraged kids to have faith despite the ridicule of unbelievers:

          “Could it be you’re afraid of what your friends might say
          If they knew you believe in God above?
          They should realise before they criticise
          That God is the only way to love
          Is your mind so small that you have to fall
          In with the pack wherever they run
          Will you still sneer when death is near
          And say that you may as well worship the sun?“

    • “DD did not sell him the rifle directly ; it had to be shipped to an FFL for transfer after completion of a 4473“

      Did DD receive money directly from the perpetrator? If so, he did indeed ‘open an account’ with DD.

    • The judge as well, but jail is a waste of tax $$$. Just take them on a long 1 way boat ride.

  5. I’m thinking Daniel Defense will be the only ones sued.
    Soros, Bloomberg, theBiden.
    Times running out. To save American lives the people must be disarmned.
    If no one would have had swords Ghengis Khan wouldn’t have had to kill everybody.

    • No it won’t.
      , and me and the wifey cruising around in the new Mazzarati that the blood money bought just don’t sound like non fun at all.
      If they want to sue as close to possible as they could for this tragedy it should be the parents of the creator of the monster.

  16. I wanna know how a kid working part-time at wendy’s could afford the DD shopping spree.

  17. I’m going to sue all the fast food restaurants for the obesity they cause!! Those lawyers should be hung! All those cops should be in jail!

  18. I read this story and thought I’d just keep my opinion to myself, but I can’t. IMHO, the blame for all of this should be placed squarely at the feet of the Uvalde ISD police chief. He was the incident commander and was unprepared by not having all of his equipment available, i.e., his hand held radio, hence no way to communicate.

    He held back the officers from going into the room to confront the shooter which goes against the protocol taught by ALERRT. Further, there was some body cam released that showed a TX DPS trooper telling some of the local LEOs that we’ve got to go in! The local LEO’s answer was we have to wait for permission to go in. It’s been years since I went through some ALERRT training, but I don’t think the core element of the training of running to the sound of the gunshots and engaging the shooter has ever changed.

    Regarding the suing of Daniel Defense because they are to blame for the shooting is total bull. It’s just another lawyer trying to find deep pockets. BTW, DD rifles are not cheap and the perp would have had to worked a lot of overtime at whatever fast food restaurant he worked to buy that rifle.

  20. Find out which parents vote for DemonRats who love gun free zones and pull them all out of the suit. Pretty much guarantee there won’t be any “plaintiffs” left.

  22. If playing Call of Duty made you a school shooter, then there would be ten MILLION school shootings annually instead of less than ten shootings.
    I don’t play it myself, but I know many people do.

  23. Lawyers are scum of the earth. We need to export 99% of them to eliminate this kind of garbage. Suing a gun manufacturer for the gun operating properly ought to be thrown out of court and the parties threatened with contempt.

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