On Tuesday, the families of nine children killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting settled with Remington Arms, receiving a collective total of $73 million in compensation from the gun manufacturer.
As Insider reports, Remington was targeted by the families of the 2012 shooting due to the fact that one of the guns used in the attack, a Bushmaster rifle, was manufactured by Remington. The company was not sued by families until 2014, two years after the attack.
The basis for the lawsuit was that Remington marketed its rifle in such a way that it became appealing as a weapon of choice for the shooter, Adam Lanza, who committed suicide after he killed 27 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty of his victims were children, while six were staff members at the school; he had earlier killed his own mother at their home before heading to the school.
Following the settlement, several of the plaintiffs and their lawyers expressed explicitly anti-gun sentiments in their public statements. One of the plaintiffs, Nicole Hockley, claimed that “today is a day of accountability for an industry that has thus far enjoyed operating with immunity and impunity. And for this I am grateful.” She also described the settlement as a “crack” in “the gun industry’s impenetrable armor.”
Josh Koskoff, the attorney for the coalition of families, similarly claimed that the ruling was proof that “the gun industry’s protection is not bulletproof.” Koskoff added that the settlement not only included the financial compensation, but the sharing of “hundreds of thousands of documents” detailing Remington’s internal marketing strategy as it related to that particular firearm.
Remington tried to argue that it was protected under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but the Connecticut Supreme Court allowed the lawsuit to proceed. The Connecticut court’s justification was that the law does “not permit advertisements that promote or encourage violent, criminal behavior,” without citing any evidence of what “violent behavior” was in any of the marketing.
Remington’s attempts to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States were denied when the high court declined to take up the case.
The case is one of the most prominent examples yet of the anti-Second Amendment movement’s attempts to hold gun manufacturers liable for crimes their guns were involved in, even if the company itself had no involvement. Such legislation was passed in New York state, and the nation of Mexico is suing American gun manufacturers for similar reasons, with over a dozen American states siding with the foreign country against American businesses.