On May 24, 2022, Salvador Ramos entered his former school, Robb Elementary, in Uvalde, Texas, and murdered 19 children and two teachers, while injuring 17 others. Now, on the two-year anniversary of the school shooting, the families of the Uvlade victims have filed multiple lawsuits, including one in California that’s targeting Call of Duty publisher Activision and Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, for their alleged role in putting the gun in the killer’s hands.
Via The Washington Post, the lawsuits were filed by attorney Josh Koskoff, who contends that Activision and Meta share responsibility for “grooming… socially vulnerable” young men with violent video game fantasies. The complaint also states that both companies “knowingly exposed the Shooter to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as the solution to his problems, and trained him to use it.”
“Over the last 15 years, two of America’s largest technology companies–Defendants Activision and Meta–have partnered with the firearms industry in a scheme that makes the Joe Camel campaign look laughably harmless, even quaint,” continues the complaint. “To put a finer point on it: Defendants are chewing up alienated teenage boys and spitting out mass shooters.”
As spelled out in the lawsuit, the families allege that Ramos downloaded a copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare that features the same DDM4V7 model rifle that he later purchased and used for the school shooting. Additionally, it accuses Meta of sending Ramos targeted ads for the same gun on Instagram from the manufacturer, Daniel Defense.
Meta doesn’t allow gun manufacturers to purchase direct advertisements for weapons or explosives. But the lawsuit suggests that Daniel Defense got around that restriction by posting promotional material about the weapons on the company’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. A separate lawsuit was also filed by the families against Daniel Defense.
GameSpot has reached out to Activision for comment.