There are 2 issues involved: 1. the tenants have obligations under the lease and 2. there has been a civil tort committed against the gun owner. These 2 issues are pretty much unrelated.
Without reading the lease, it’s pure speculation but in all likelihood all tenants signed the lease. That means each tenant is personally responsible for the payment of the total rent each month. The landlord doesn’t care who pays it as long as someone does. If no one pays, the landlord can try to collect against all of them or against any one or more of them. It’s his call.
The tenants probably have only an oral agreement among themselves as to how they will share the rent. This oral agreement among tenants is of no real interest to the landlord. He wants the rent each month and doesn’t care who pays it.
So if the snowflakes move out and gun owner remains, the landlord will be looking to her for payment of ALL the rent. If she doesn’t pay, he can sue her for payment and institute an eviction action. In that action, the gun owner would then bring in as third party defendants the snowflakes who bolted leaving her holding the bag for the monthly rent.
Months of litigation ensues and legal fees rise through the roof.
But also, as part of this lawsuit, gun owner can include in her complaint against the snowflakes, their invasion of her privacy. How this claim would shake out is anybody’s guess.
My advice to gun owner would be: you’ve done nothing wrong. They have. You stay your ground and if they move out causing you damage under the lease, we’ll sue their asses off and let the chips fall where they may. The only problem with this approach though, the same problem with so much of our “justice” system, is gun owner is gonna need about $50,000 cash to make her play.
And the attorney’s always win, too. Also, there is a high potential in this situation for collusion among the other room mates. They could say she threatened them with a firearm and then back up each other. This is a rotten mess and the gun owner should have already lawyered up.
Where’s her gofundme page? She’d earn enough donations for legal fees in no time.