The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence alleges that the design of armslist.com facilitates illegal online sales to unlawful gun buyers with no background checks, and enables users to evade laws that permit private sellers to sell guns only to residents of their own state.
"We as a nation are better than an anonymous Internet gun market where killers and criminals can easily get guns," said Jonathan Lowy, the Brady Center's legal action project director, in a statement.
The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of the family of Jitka Vesel, 36, an immigrant from the Czech Republic who was shot and killed last year by Demetry Smirnov, a stalker.
The suit, which the Brady Center says is the first of its kind, alleges that Smirnov illegally bought the gun from a private seller he located through armslist.com.
