Call of Duty Publisher Activision and Meta Sued by Families of Uvalde Shooting Victims

ign.com:

Call of Duty publisher Activision and Facebook and Instagram owner Meta are being sued in a new suit filed today by several families of victims of the 2022 Uvalde elementary school shooting, The New York Times reports today.

The lawsuit, filed in California, comes alongside an additional suit filed in Texas targeting the manufacturer of the gunman's AR-15-style rifle, Daniel Defense. Both suits arrive on the two-year anniversary of the shooting, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School. The documents claim that Activision, Meta, and Daniel Defense each took part in "grooming" the gunman to be a mass shooter.

Activision and Meta are being sued, essentially, for the roles the documents allege they played in promoting the gun used in the shooting to 18-year-old Salvador Ramos. The Uvalde families are being represented by lawyer Josh Koskoff, best known for reaching a $73 million settlement with the maker of another AR-15-style rifle that was used in the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.

“Daniel Defense is a predator but can’t get to the prey without the help of these other third parties,” Koskoff says.

Ramos allegedly bought the gun a week before the shooting, just 23 minutes after his 18th birthday, the suit alleges. Koskoff argues that this came months after he started playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare which, according to the lawyer's account, began a spiral of the teenager becoming obsessed with guns. The gun that Ramos did end up purchasing, a DDM4 V7, was featured on Modern Warfare's opening title page, the lawsuit says.

“Within a week of downloading Modern Warfare on Nov. 5, 2021, the shooter’s phone indicates a growing obsession with weapons and accessories associated with the game," Koskoff says, according to the NYT.

The suit goes onto allege that, by December 2021, Ramos was looking into Daniel Defense, reasearching what models he might use, and making several Instagram posts about weapons. In the process, Koskoff