Sandy Hook families persevere, triumph

Ten days before Christmas Eve 2012, a young man entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn., and committed one of the most horrifying acts of mass violence in U.S. history.

He brutally shot and killed 20 young children, along with six adult staff members. Earlier, he had shot and killed his mother. When his slaughter was complete, he shot himself in the head. His weapon of choice, as has been the case in so many mass shootings, was an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, in this case, a Remington Bushmaster, with 300 rounds of ammunition.

It has taken 10 long years, but the families left behind at Sandy Hook have done more than grieve. They have become a relentless force that has found a chink in the firearms industry's substantial armor. In a settlement announced last week, Remington — while not admitting liability — nevertheless paid out $73 million to the families. The landmark lawsuit marks the first time a U.S. gun manufacturer has settled a lawsuit in a mass shooting.

The road to this settlement started in 2014 with a lawsuit brought by the families against Remington. The gun manufacturer did everything in its power to kill it. At one point, its lawyers demanded the school and disciplinary records of the young victims. It appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear it.

But the Sandy Hook families maintained that the gunmaker had 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," with an aggressive and reckless ad campaign. Slogans like, "Consider your man card reissued," and "Forces of opposition bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered," the families contended, exploited the fantasies and anxieties of troubled young men without regard to outcomes.

Faced with diminishing options, the now-bankrupt company is paying out through its insurers. Representatives of the larger gun industry have argued that the impact of the Sandy Hook settlement will be limited; that solvent gunmakers would more vigorously defend themselves. There is little doubt they also will exercise their still considerable clout.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the industry was rocked by multiple lawsuits, a number of them filed by cities trying to hold manufacturers accountable. Then in 2005 came a New York City law that allowed lawsuits against manufacturers and dealers that did not comply with city gun control measures. Industry reaction was swift and the lobbying for protection intense.

Within seven months, the U.S. Senate adopted the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a shameful and blatant knuckling under to gun lobbyists that resulted in unparalleled protections against liability when crimes were committed with their products. House passage quickly followed. When President George W. Bush signed the bill into law, Wayne LaPierre, then head of the National Rifle Association, hailed it as the most significant piece of pro-gun legislation in decades.

America has suffered through 17 years of mass shootings since then — more than enough to prove the folly of granting immunity that appears to have fostered a reckless disregard by firearms manufacturers that take no responsibility for the way their products are marketed.

The best course of action would be to repeal the gun industry's near-singular immunity. There would still be all the legal hurdles involved in bringing a case to trial and proving allegations. Survivors would still face, no doubt, years of effort to do so. But there at least would be the promise of change.

The feat of Sandy Hook families may be difficult to repeat. Initially, a Connecticut Superior Court judge had dismissed the lawsuit, saying that it fell well within the immunity granted by Congress. It took several more years until the Connecticut Supreme Court reversed that ruling. And a new conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court might not decline to take up such a case.

Nevertheless, the Sandy Hook settlement has caught the attention of leading officials looking for ways to impose some degree of accountability. Still to come are thousands of pages of details on marketing strategies from internal Remington company documents. Those were obtained during the lawsuit and the company has agreed, as part of the settlement, to release them.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called the settlement "intriguing," and said "it definitely opens up some possibilities," especially for states such as Minnesota, with strong consumer laws similar to Connecticut.

"We're not talking here about the right to bear arms so much as to sell arms," Ellison said. That, he noted, is not a constitutionally protected right and should be subject to market constraints.

"One of these days the industry is going to overplay its hand," Ellison said. "And [it] just may have."