(RepublicanDaily.org) – Fortress Safe, a gun safe company based out of Illinois, has recalled more than 60,000 of its biometric gun safes after the parents of a 12-year-old boy sued the company after alleging that the child was able to open the safe even though his biometrics were not registered on the device.
Due to the unauthorized access, the child sustained a “lethal gunshot wound to the head.” The lawsuit also alleges that the safe was shipped in a state that allowed anybody to open it. The safe in question was a 44B20 Fortress gun safe.
Josh Dowling, the attorney for the boy’s family, said in a statement to news outlet HuffPost, that having a reliable gun safe is essential for responsible gun owners who just want to protect their families.
The suit comes on top of more than two dozen complaints filed with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission that allege similar incidents. A recall notice from the CPSC said that “the safe remains in the default to open mode” even though users have configured their fingerprints on the device in biometrics mode. The agency has asked owners of the device to stop using the biometric feature, remove the batteries, and only use the key when operating the safe.
A number of the brand names included in the recall include “Fortress,” “Cabela’s,” “Gettysburg,” and “Legend Range & Field.”
The company has also issued its own statement, saying that unpaired fingerprints, including those of children, can be used to open the safe until owners program their own fingerprints into the biometric reader.
The lawsuit against Fortress also accuses the gun safe maker of continuing to market and sell the device even though it had a “defective design” as evidenced not only by the plaintiff’s experience, but also by the experiences of other users and individuals who reported coming across the same issue.
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