NEWTOWN, Conn. (1010 WINS) One of the plaintiffs who won a $73 million settlement from gun manufacturer Remington for the massacre of 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 with a Remington-made assault rifle spoke about the victory Wednesday.
“The whole point of this is to keep our kids safe in schools everywhere,” said Scarlett Lewis, a plaintiff whose son Jesse was killed in the shooting. “We all want to be safe. So this is a small step towards that for sure.”
The families of nine victims of the Sandy Hook shooting reached a settlement Tuesday with Remington, the manufacturer of the Bushmaster XM15-E2S assault rifle used in the 2012 massacre.
The wrongful death lawsuit, which the families filed in 2014, focused on Remington’s marketing — a novel strategy that successfully circumvented a 2005 law that gives gun manufacturers and dealers broad immunity from lawsuits related to misuse of their weapons.
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act has stymied similar lawsuits in the past, and the settlement with the Newtown families shows gun manufacturers are not untouchable.
The families’ lawyers argued Remington advertised the XM15 as a combat weapon, which would not be a legal use of the gun. The suit went on to argue the company violated Connecticut laws against deceptive marketing practices by portraying the gun as a tool for military use rather than sport or hunting.
“It’s really not about the gun, it’s more about the deceptive marketing practices that they use to get that gun into the hands of young men that have emotional issues,” said Lewis. “And I do believe that it is absolutely a step towards making our children safer.”
The settlement will also allow the plaintiffs to release thousands of internal Remington documents that the families’ lawyers say demonstrate the company’s malfeasance.
Lewis says she hopes that by demonstrating gun manufacturers and distributors aren’t fully immune to lawsuits, banks and insurance agencies will be less eager to support them financially in the wake of mass shootings.
After her son’s murder, Lewis started the Jesse Lewis Choose Love foundation — a non-profit dedicated to building loving communities using social emotional learning programs.
“If the shooter had been able — so that means had the essential life skills that would enable him to give and receive nurturing, healing love, the tragedy would have never happened,” she said. “It was so simple, yet simple isn’t always easy.”
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