KY mom sues company that sold her teen a ‘ghost gun’ kit he used to take his life
A Louisville mother whose teenage son died by suicide has filed a lawsuit against the companies she says illegally enabled him to obtain the gun he used to take his life.
Henry Willis, 18, was a recent graduate of Jefferson County’s Seneca High School.
“He had a beautiful singing voice and was learning to play the guitar,” the lawsuit says. “He was teaching his youngest brother how to roller skate.
“But Henry could also be moody and had begun exhibiting impulsive aggression. In the months leading up to his death, Henry began to experience symptoms of schizophrenia, broke his neck during a serious fall, and ran into trouble with the law.”
According to the lawsuit, “Nevertheless, he was showing some signs of his old self: He earned his high school diploma and took control of his own finances. He was receiving psychological treatment. His family was hopeful for his future.”
But on July 6, 2023, he bought a kit online from a Nebraska-based company, Husky Armory, that allowed him to build a handgun, the suit claims.
The lawsuit says the company “did not meaningfully verify whether Henry was old enough to legally purchase or possess such a weapon (he was not) or conduct a background check (which he would have failed).”
Six days after the kit arrived in the mail, on July 30, 2023, Willis used the gun to kill himself.
“I firmly believe my son would be alive today if Husky Armory hadn’t sold him that handgun kit,” Willis’ mother, Laura Herp, said in a news release. “Far too many families share my pain — I just want to make sure no one experiences a similar tragedy in the future.”
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Jefferson Circuit Court against Omaha-based Husky Armory and its parent, Up North Media, accuses the companies of negligence, wrongful death and negligent entrustment. It asks for compensatory and punitive damages and other relief.
The lawsuit was filed by Louisville-based Thomas Law Offices and by Everytown Law, which has been involved in similar lawsuits involving teens who were able to get access to guns and in lawsuits filed on behalf of the victims of mass shootings, including the one at Old National Bank in Louisville in April 2023.
Neither Husky nor Up North Media is a federally licensed firearms dealer, the suit states. Instead, the companies provide what the suit describes as “easy-to assemble, almost-complete, all-parts-included kits” for building “ghost guns,” which do not have a serial number and are sold without a background check.
Those details, according to the suit, make them “virtually untraceable by law enforcement.”
Husky says on its website that it allows customers to have a kit “shipped directly to your door that does not include unconstitutional checks and waiting periods.”
However, the lawsuit argues the kits sold by Husky legally qualify as firearms under the federal Gun Control Act and therefore should require a background check and age verification.
If Willis had been subjected to such checks, he would have been prohibited from buying a gun because he was under 21, had a protective order in place that prohibited him from possessing a firearm and had recently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree assault and domestic violence, the lawsuit states.
“Henry only needed to drill out two holes, insert screws, remove five plastic tabs, and assemble the weapon in order to have a fully operable Glock 19-style handgun,” the lawsuit states. “Instructions for how to build the Kit were readily available to him online—including on the website of Husky Armory’s affiliate, 3D Gun Builder.”
A news release states that “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 are firearms under federal law and must comply with all federal gun sale requirements, including background checks and sales through licensed dealers.”
A suicide and crisis hotline is available 24/7 and can be reached by dialing 988. More information can be found at 988lifeline.org.
