It marks a historical win for the victims of gun violence.
The families of the Sandy Hook victims have won their fight against Remington Arms in which the gun manufacturer has been held liable for the deaths of those murdered with their guns.
Remington Arms made the gun used to kill 20 children and six adults in the 2012 shooting at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, which is considered one of the worst gun related atrocities in the United States.
Remington created the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle that Adam Lanza used in the 2012 shooting at the Connecticut elementary school.
The lawsuit argued that Remington should not have sold such a dangerous weapon to the public, and that the gunmaker specifically targeted younger, at-risk males in its marketing and product placement.
In 2020, lawyers for the Sandy Hook families said Remington filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to escape responsibility from the lawsuit.
The following year in 2021, Remington Arms subpoenaed report cards, attendance and employment records of five children and four teachers killed in the shooting, which was called into question by the families of the victims.
Last July, Remington offered to pay $33 million to settle the lawsuit, which the families declined.
Josh Koskoff, the lead attorney representing the families, said in a statement;
“These nine families have shared a single goal from the very beginning: to do whatever they could to help prevent the next Sandy Hook. It is hard to imagine an outcome that better accomplishes that goal.
For the gun industry, it’s time to stop recklessly marketing all guns to all people for all uses and instead ask how marketing can lower risk rather than court it.
Our hope is that this victory will be the first boulder in the avalanche that forces that change.”
Almost ten years on the community of Newtown, Connecticut is still reeling from the tragedy, with survivors, who are now teenagers talking openly on social media of the PTSD that still suffer with.
Of those killed most of the Sandy Hook victims were under the age of seven.
