A Rare Win For Gun Control
Sandy Hook families found a way to make a gunmaker pay
Thanks to a group of grieving family members, we now know one way to make gun manufacturers reassess the sale of military-style weapons to the public.
Relatives of five children and four adults who were among the 26 killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting agreed this week to a $73 million settlement with Remington Arms and its four insurers.
Remington, based in North Carolina, made the Bushmaster AR15-style rifle used in the Newtown, Conn. tragedy. Now bankrupt, the company has not admitted responsibility. But this is a significant surrender in the so-far bullet-proof industry. It will give manufactures and their insurers second thoughts about how to sell such products.
A 2005 federal law protects the firearms industry from most liability when guns are misused. However, this lawsuit, filed in 2014, argued that Remington violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act when it “knowingly marketed and promoted the Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle for use in assaults against human beings.”
The settlement also includes plans by the families to make public the marketing records they recovered from Remington as the two sides prepared for trial, said the families’ attorney Joshua Koskoff.
“We heard that we had an impossible and unwinnable case — that firearm manufacturers were immune and untouchable,” Nicole Hockley, whose son, Dillon, was killed, said during a Tuesday press conference. “For eight long years we continued our fight to hold Remington accountable for its role in prioritizing profit above safety and using reckless marketing techniques to appeal to at-risk and violent-prone young men.”
The lawsuit cited promotion of the rifle during video games and an ad that included the slogan, “Consider your man card reissued.” Another ad proclaimed, “Forces of opposition, bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered.”
The Sandy Hook attack was committed by Adam Lanza, a mentally ill 20-year-old who took his mother’s weapons to kill her, open fire inside the school and then commit suicide.
The Sandy Hook families are inspiring examples of courage and perseverance. The case had several twists and turns. A superior court ruling against it was reversed by the Connecticut Supreme Court. Remington appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to consider the case. Last year, the families rejected an offer last for less than half the settlement.
In addition to the loss of loved ones, all the Sandy Hook families have been attacked by conspiracy theorists who argue they are “crisis actors” in a hoax to undermine the constitutional right to bear arms. Some have had to leave their homes because of the harrassment.
In November, a state court in Connecticut ruled that families of eight people killed at Sandy Hook have been defamed by far-right broadcaster Alex Jones and his Infowars media operation. That followed a similar Texas ruling filed against Jones by relatives of two others who died in the shooting. Trials to determine the penalties for Jones have will be held this year.
Battling conspiracies pales in comparison to the challenge of coping with the untimely deaths of 20 children and six adults who were just at school that day. But both the Alex Jones suits and the Remington settlement show that these families are unwilling to have their loved ones’ lives simply dismissed.
If only Congress would show a fraction of that passion by focusing on gun safety and gunmaker liability. President Biden called on Congress to repeal the immunity law and said he would “continue to urge state and local lawmakers, lawyers, and survivors of gun violence to pursue efforts to replicate the success of the Sandy Hook families.”
