The US is known as one of the most litigious countries in the world, and in recent years there’s been a new effort to apply that reputation to one of the nation’s most vexing problems: gun violence.

In the absence of political change to tackle the US’s epidemic of gun violence, survivors of mass shootings have been launching multimillion-dollar lawsuits against gunmakers, gun dealers, tech companies and the federal government for their failure to protect them.

While suits against the gun industry have happened before, their increased use now is, in part, due to the rise of large, well-resourced violence-prevention groups backing them as a tool for change – to shift the narrative about who bears responsibility for mass shootings, and to force the gun industry, social media companies and the federal government to shift their practices.

“The lawsuits are created because we can’t get anything done at the state, local or federal levels, so we go for the manufacturers,” said Dion Green, who survived a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, in 2019. “No one likes when their money gets attacked.”