Attendees browse the Daniel Defense firearms booth at the NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas on May 17, 2024.Several Uvalde families are suing Daniel Defense, the gun company whose AR-15 style rifle an 18-year-old gunman used to kill 19 children and two teachers and injure several others at Robb Elementary two years ago, lawyers said.
“Just 23 minutes after midnight on his 18th birthday, the Uvalde shooter bought an AR-15 made by a company with a market share of less than one percent,” Koskoff said in a statement. “Why? Because, well before he was old enough to purchase it, he was targeted and cultivated online by Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense. 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.
The lawsuit against Activision and Meta was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of approximately 45 family members of the victims. It accuses the gaming company of desensitizing young men to acts of mass violence and grooming them to seek out weapons like those featured in Call of Duty. While Instagram prohibits the marketing of firearms on its platform, the lawsuit claims Instagram fails to enforce firearm guidelines while rigorously enforcing other types of content guidelines.
A 2019 Instagram post from Daniel Defense says “Call of Duty Modern Warfare launched today” and shows a photo of the type of rifle used in the Uvalde shooting. Daniel Defense has sought to dismiss those lawsuits, which were filed in federal court and remain ongoing. Officers who responded to the Robb Elementary School shooting feared the rifle and decided to not immediately confront the gunman, aUvalde families pushed the state Legislature to pass a bill to raise the minimum age for buying certain semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. That billDisclosure: Facebook has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors.