Mother Sues Online Ghost-Gun Companies for Illegally Selling Firearm Kit to her Teenage Son, Resulting in his Death by Suicide

Everytown Law, along with the Thomas Law Offices, filed a lawsuit on behalf of Laura Herp, the mother of 18-year-old Henry Willis, against the online, unlicensed firearms companies that illegally sold her son a gun-building kit, enabling his death by suicide.

On July 6, 2023, Defendants Husky Armory LLC and Up North Media LLC illegally sold Henry a ghost-gun-building kit through their website. A law-abiding, licensed firearms seller would not have sold Henry a handgun for at least two reasons: (i) he was too young under federal law at age 18; and (ii) he would have failed a legally required background check. But as the lawsuit alleges, Defendants sold handgun kits to anyone willing to pay for them. Just six days after receiving the kit by mail, Henry used the handgun he built from it to end his own life.

The firearm kit Defendants sold Henry included “everything you need to build your own Glock style pistol from the comfort of your home.” Because the kit was designed to and could readily be converted to operate as a gun, it was a firearm under federal law. Indeed, the kit included a nearly finished Polymer80 Glock-style frame — the same type at the heart of the recent United States Supreme Court ruling in Bondi v. VanDerStok, which affirmed that such kits and frames are legally firearms, and that their sale must comply with all relevant requirements under federal law—including background checks, transfers only through licensed dealers, and prohibition on sale to underaged and otherwise restricted purchasers. In short, the lawsuit alleges that Defendants’ violation of gun safety laws resulted in exactly the kind of tragedy those laws were intended to prevent.

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