Two lawsuits have been filed by the families of some of the victims of the 2019 shooting at a California garlic festival against the companies that distributed the rifle used in the attack.
The suits, filed in U.S. District Court in Vermont on July 28, name gun manufacturer Century International Arms and Romanian firearm producer ROMARM as the defendants.
It claims that both failed to take the proper steps to make sure they were selling weapons safely and inevitably "enabled a dangerous individual operating in and around California" to obtain a firearm legally in Nevada and then travel with it to California, where it was used to wound 17 and kill three, ABC News reported.
The suits were filed on the third anniversary of the shooting. They claim that Century Arms may have violated Vermont laws on selling large capacity magazines, along with other questionable business practices.
"Defendants knowingly breached the duty to exercise the highest degree of reasonable care in preventing the diversion of firearms to dangerous actors that they had voluntarily assumed when they entered the firearms business," the lawsuits say.
Century Arms is based in Delray Beach, Florida, but owns a facility in Georgia, Vermont, where ROMARM firearms are modified to comply with U.S. law, the suit says, the Associated Press reported.
Federal law has long protected gun-makers from any liability regarding shootings. However, this could soon change, as a similar suit involving the maker of a rifle used to kill 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 and the victims' families ended in a $73 million settlement.
The tide could also be changing due to comments from President Joe Biden, who called on Congress to end what he says are "outrageous" protections for gun manufacturers. Biden's remarks came after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 students and two teachers dead.
Biden compared gun manufacturers' liability to the tobacco industry, which has long been in litigation over its products causing cancer.
But as for the lawsuits, they claim that the defendants have violated "the relevant standard of care."
"A mass shooting like the Attack in which an individual like the Shooter uses a firearm like the Rifle to inflict catastrophic harm on parties like the Plaintiffs is a natural and foreseeable consequence of Defendants' violations of the relevant standard of care," according to the lawsuit.
Gilroy police reported after the 2019 shooting that the shooter fired 39 rounds from an AK-47-style rifle.
Damages for the plaintiffs were not specified in the lawsuits, but it did note that they are seeking a jury trial.
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