Highland Park shooting survivors sue gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson

A group of survivors of the Highland Park mass shooting are suing a number of firearm companies they believe are responsible for endangering their lives.

The survivors filed a set of lawsuits on Wednesday in Lake County, Illinois, targeting the gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson, the online gun distributor Bud’s Gun Shop, and retailer Red Dot Arms, along with the alleged shooter Robert Crimo and his father for their roles in the shooting.

The shooting, which took place at a July 4 parade in the Chicago suburb, left seven people dead and 48 injured. The survivors are being represented in their legal actions by Romanucci & Blandin, LLC, Everytown Law, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

“The use of a Smith & Wesson M&P15 for this nefarious purpose was predictable and preventable and there must be accountability for the corporate decisions that incubated this tragedy, clearly dismissing public safety while bringing in record earnings. With this litigation we intend to end the Smith & Wesson manipulation of consumers,” Antonio Romanucci of Romanucci & Blandin, LLC said in a statement.

According to one of the suits, Smith & Wesson’s marketing of the weapon used in the mass shooting was deceptive because it implied a link between the gun and the US military to attract the business of people like the shooter. It claims that given the frequency of mass shootings in the US, the company acted irresponsibly in its pursuit of profit.

“The gun industry targets its advertising to a subset of consumers — like the shooter here — that it knows are impulsive and prone to violence,” another lawyer, H Christopher Boehning, said in a release.

“Time and again, they have seen their products used in mass shootings. Yet manufacturers like Smith & Wesson refuse to take even the most basic steps to address their dangerous sales and marketing practices.”

Smith & Wesson was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.

Other suits claimed that Bud’s Gun Shop and Red Dot Arms illegally sold the shooter the weapon in violation of an assault weapons ban in the jurisdiction and that his father should not have sponsored his son’s firearm application when he had recently threatened to kill everyone in his home and commit suicide.

The law firm Romanucci & Blandin also represented survivors of the mass shooting that took place at a concert in Las Vegas in 2017. Everytown Law is also supporting the Highland Park survivors in their legal pursuits.