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.

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