New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of a gun safety lock that mass shooter Payton Gendron was able to easily remove — enabling his 2022 massacre in a Buffalo grocery store where he killed 10 people and wounded three others — she announced Thursday.
The suit filed against the Georgia-based gun accessory manufacturer, Mean Arms, is for their product called the “MA lock” that James said they falsely advertise as a product that makes guns compliant with New York law.
Mean Arms declined to comment to the Daily News.
Gendron, a self-identified white supremacist and fascist, said in his manifesto that he was able to “easily remove” the MA lock from the used AR-15 he purchased in just a few minutes using a power drill he had handy at home.
Then Gendron was able to add a 30 round detachable magazine, which he used to kill 10 black people in mere minutes at Tops Friendly Market in May 2022. He was sentenced to life in prison in February for the lethal rampage.
“We lost 10 innocent lives because a hate-fueled individual was able to make an AR-15 even deadlier through a simple change at home,” James said in a statement.
She added that Mean Arms provides customers a four-step set of instructions to remove the lock on the back of the product packaging, despite knowing it can “make guns more dangerous.”
The instructions explain you only need “any brand of screw extractor from your local hardware store” to remove the lock. They even recommend the #2 speed out drill bit, which Grendon used.
Videos online also demonstrate to gun owners how to remove the lock.
The lawsuit aims to require Mean Arms to to stop all distribution of the MA lock to New Yorkers, pay civil penalties and more.