On the second anniversary of the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, families of the victims have filed two lawsuits which accuse Instagram, gun maker Daniel Defense, and Activision of "grooming" the 18-year-old mass shooter, reports The New York Times.
The shooter purchased an AR-15 just after his 18th birthday and on May 24, 2022 killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, injuring 17 others. The ineffective police response has been the primary subject of criticism since the shooting, and the families recently reached a $2 million settlement with the city of Uvalde.
These new lawsuits, one filed in California and the other in Texas, turn attention to the marketing and sale of the gun used by the shooter. The California suit claims that 2021's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare featured the weapon, a Daniel Defense M4 V7, on a splash screen, and that playing the game led the teenager to research and then later purchase the gun hours after his 18th birthday. According to NYT, the complaint says that Call of Duty's simulation of recognizable guns makes Activision "the most prolific and effective marketer of assault weapons in the United States."
An Activision representative told the paper that the company expresses its "deepest sympathies" to the families, but disagrees with the conclusion that Call of Duty motivated the shooter, saying that "millions of people around the world enjoy videogames without turning to horrific acts."
The Entertainment Software Association, whose membership includes Activision Blizzard owner Microsoft, said that the accusation is "baseless."
"We are saddened and outraged by senseless acts of violence," reads an ESA statement provided to PC Gamer. "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. Many other countries have similar rates of video gameplay to the United States, yet do not see similar rates of gun violence."
In 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that Activision once made a "secret deal" with Remington to feature the gun maker's Adaptive Combat Rifle in 2009's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the same gun used in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Remington was sued by the families of those victims for irresponsible marketing, and settled for $73 million in 2022. Activision was not targeted by that lawsuit.
Attempts to find the makers of violent videogames legally responsible for the actions of mass shooters have thus far not been successful, and in 2011 the US Supreme Court ruled that videogames are protected by the First Amendment. The notion that a game maker might be held liable for irresponsibly marketing a weapon, however, may be new territory.
Aside from Activision, the families have accused Instagram and Daniel Defense of recklessly marketing the weapon.
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