Who, beyond deceased shooter Salvador Ramos, bears legal responsibility for the mass shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022? 

According to two recent lawsuits (one in California, one in Texas) three businesses that provide lawful services and goods––ones sheltered by the US Constitution’s First or Second Amendments––should be held civilly liable and compensate the victims’ families. The California case targets Meta and its social media platform, Instagram, plus Activision and Activision Blizzard’s immensely successful Call of Duty video game franchise. The Texas litigation centers primarily on defendant Daniel Defense, a company that sells “the world’s finest AR15-style rifles . . . for civilian, law enforcement, and military customers.” At Robb Elementary School, Ramos used an AR-15-style rifle made by Daniel Defense.

Collectively, the lawsuits triangulate responsibility, painting a picture in which the companies behind a social media platform, video game series, and semi-automatic rifle “have collaborated” as a “modern-day Cerberus” that “guards the gates of the underworld.” The California lawsuit aligns with cases seeking to hold social media companies responsible for others’ violence, including the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket.

Identifying causes behind such tragedies is immensely important, but the California complaint is perhaps too quick to blame a social media platform and video game series. Unfortunately, the complaint appears geared more toward garnering sympathy and support in the court of public opinion than toward providing factual evidence for proving the elements of the various legal theories propounded. 

For example, the complaint avers in sensationalistic, hyperbolic fashion that the media defendants, along with Daniel Defense, “bear responsibility for [the] profound corruption of our children” and “are chewing up alienated teenage boys and spitting out mass shooters.” It claims here that the killers at Robb Elementary School (Uvalde, Texas), Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland, Florida), and Sandy Hook Elementary School (Newtown, Connecticut) were all “between the ages of 18 and 21 years,” “devoted player[s] of Call of Duty,” and “committed their attack in tactical gear, wielding an assault rifle.” 

However, such a connection, if present, sounds much more like correlation than proof of causation. The complaint also makes one ponder how many tens of thousands of men of that same age who played Call of Duty during the period spanning from December 14, 2012 (when the killings in Newtown occurred) to May 24, 2022 (when the killings in Uvalde took place) did not commit any violence, much less mass shootings.

The California complaint absolves parents of responsibility, alleging they “don’t stand a chance. This hijacking of children’s lives [by Instagram, Call of Duty, and assault weapon companies] has sidelined them, obliterating their ability to serve as either gatekeeper or protector.” That’s a sweeping assertion designed to focus attention on the defendants, not on the myriad reasons why a person––not a video game, not a social media platform, and not a gun manufacturer––might commit mass murder.

The California lawsuit paints Ramos, the shooter, as the manipulated victim of online platforms. He’s “a poor and isolated teenager” from a “threadbare town” who was both “conditioned” and “trained” by the defendants to use an AR-15 “as the solution to his problems.” Ramos is described as having been bullied, taunted, depressed, and lonely. He’s thus easy prey for, as the complaint dubs them, “California corporations . . . who rake in billions from the comfort of Menlo Park [Meta] and Santa Monica [Activision Blizzard].”

Furthermore, the complaint insinuates that the defendants engaged in a strategy that sought out people similar to Ramos: It claims they “have groomed a generation of young men who are socially vulnerable.” (emphasis added) The problematic invocation of grooming to characterize the defendants’ alleged actions is juxtaposed with the much more real abuse the Ramos suffered from an adult as noted in the complaint. 

Yet, “groomed” already gained something for the plaintiffs––media attention. “Grooming” appeared in the headline of a New York Times article about the cases, while “groom” surfaced in a Wall Street Journal article.

Technology addiction also is central to the California complaint: Instagram is an “addictive platform” to which Ramos “became addicted,” while Call of Duty creates “an addicting theater of violence.” As I’ve explained, claiming social media platforms and video games are addictive is in vogue for plaintiffs’ attorneys and lawmakers.

Ultimately, for all its hyperbole about Cerberus, grooming and addiction, the California complaint fails to mention something that will likely defeat it––the First Amendment freedom of speech. The US Supreme Court concluded more than a decade ago that violent video games are speech products protected by the First Amendment. The defendants will make that case.

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