Son of Tree of Life victims sues NRA, alleging gun lobby spread ‘white supremacist’ conspiracies

A man whose parents were killed in the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre has sued the National Rifle Association, claiming the gun lobby radicalized accused shooter Robert Bowers with “white supremacist conspiracy theories.”

Marc Simon, the son of Bernice and Sylvan Simon, filed the lawsuit Thursday. It names as defendants the NRA, the gun maker Colt’s Manufacturing, indicted shooter Robert Bowers and the unnamed company that sold Bowers the AR-15 used in the attack.

Eleven worshippers were killed in the Oct. 27, 2018, attack in Squirrel Hill.

“Bowers was not born fearing and hating Jews,” attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. “The gun lobby taught him to do that.”

The NRA filed for bankruptcy last week, putting an automatic stay, or pause, on the claims against the group. The lawsuit will proceed against the other defendants.

A spokesman for the association reiterated the stay in a statement.

“The NRA promotes the safe, lawful use of firearms and is saddened by this horrific event,” said Andrew Arulanandam, part of the NRA’s public affairs division. “We stand with those who strictly enforce our current gun laws and call for the protection of all houses of worship.”

Charges filed against Bowers in the days after the synagogue shooting allege he told one SWAT officer on the scene that he “wanted all Jews to die” and said “(Jews) were committing genocide to his people.”

Simon’s lawsuit alleges that those ideas were not born out Bowers’ own mind, but rather put there by the gun lobby and its “conspiracy theories.”

“One such theory holds that Jews are funding an invasion of the United States by thousands of people of color from third-world countries with the goal of importing a non-white population,” the lawsuit claims. “And another holds that Jews have rigged the democratic processes and captured government into a scheme to confiscate firearms, impose socialism and subjugate the American people.”

The lawsuit cites a number of statements attributed to the NRA and its leader, Wayne LaPierre, including comments made at the February 2018 meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference referencing “so-called new European socialists.”

“It is all backed in this country by the social engineering and the billions of people like George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and more,” the lawsuit quotes LaPierre as saying in the same remarks.

Soros, Bloomberg and Steyer, all billionaires, are Jewish.

The lawsuit also alleges that Colt could have lessened the damage done by its AR-15 if it had been designed in a way that would allow it to fire less lethal rounds, have a fixed magazine capacity and prevent bump firing, a modification that allows a shooter to fire the rifle more rapidly.

“Large-capacity magazines enable shooters to kill large numbers of people while depriving victims and law enforcement of opportunities to escape or overwhelm the shooter while reloading,” the lawsuit claims, later noting “there is no record of any Pennsylvanian ever lawfully using an AR-15 for self-defense.”

Sylvan and Bernice Simon were attending Shabbat services together at the synagogue on the morning of the shooting. Their son, in his lawsuit, describes his father as an Army veteran who “enjoyed ‘drinking American’ with an occasional shot of Jim Beam.” His mother, he said, was a retired nurse.