The families of the victims of the tragic shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, have filed lawsuits against Activision, Meta, and firearm manufacturer Daniel Defense.

These families are represented by attorney Josh Koskoff, known for securing a settlement for the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims against Remington. The lawsuit against the tech companies states, “Over the past 15 years, two of the largest technology companies in the United States have collaborated with the firearms industry in a scheme that makes the Joe Camel campaign look ridiculously harmless, even quaint.”

The lawsuit specifically mentions Activision’s popular “Call of Duty” video game series, describing it as a “cunning form of marketing that has helped cultivate a new and youthful consumer base for the AR-15 assault rifle.” It also points to Instagram, owned by Meta, for “knowingly enforcing weak and easily circumvented rules that ostensibly prohibit firearm advertising; in reality, these rules function as a manual for the firearms industry.”

In response, Activision expressed its “deepest sympathies to the families and communities still affected by this senseless act of violence,” but stated, “Academic and scientific research continues to show that there is no causal link between video games and gun violence.”

We have also reached out to Meta for additional comments.

According to the lawsuit, the Uvalde shooter was a player of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” and was also targeted by Daniel Defense advertising on Instagram. (Meta prohibits the sale of firearms on its platforms, but The Washington Post previously reported that the company allows sellers up to ten strikes before taking action).

The lawsuit argues that “the defendants are preying on alienated teenagers and turning them into mass shooters.”

Politicians continue to debate whether video games promote gun violence. A recent review by the Stanford Brainstorm Lab, which examined 82 medical research articles on the subject, concluded, “Current research and medical studies have not found any causal link between video games and real-life gun violence.”

By: ForAllTechNews
Imagen: FLickr / CC BY 2.0 DEED Attribution 2.0 Generic