US gun maker loses appeal against lawsuit over Sandy Hook massacre

Supreme Court judges turned away Remington Arms’ bid to be shielded from liability over the shooting, in which 20 children and six adults were killed

United States

Reuters

Published: 11:38pm, 12 Nov 2019

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The US Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt a blow to the firearms industry, rejecting Remington Arms’ bid to escape a lawsuit by families of victims seeking to hold the gun maker liable for its marketing of the assault-style rifle used in the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre that killed 20 children and six adults.

The judges turned away Remington’s appeal of a ruling by Connecticut’s top court to let the lawsuit proceed despite a federal law that broadly shields firearms manufacturers from liability when their weapons are used in crimes. The lawsuit will move forward at a time of high passions in the United States over the issue of gun control.

Connecticut State Police leading children away from the Sandy Hook Elementary School following the shooting. Photo: AP

The family members of nine people killed and one survivor of the Sandy Hook massacre filed the lawsuit in 2014. Remington was backed in the case by a number of gun rights groups and lobbying organisations including the powerful National Rifle Association, which is closely aligned with Republicans including President Donald Trump. The NRA called the lawsuit “company-killing”.

The rampage on December 14, 2012 was carried out by a 20-year-old gunman who shot his way into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and fired on the first-graders and adult staff before turning the gun on himself as police closed in.

The US has experienced a succession of mass shootings in recent decades, including several in the years since Sandy Hook that have staggered the public, including the attack at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016 that killed 49, and the 2017 attack at a Las Vegas concert that killed 58. Assault-type rifles have been used in many of the massacres.

Family members of victims embrace outside a counselling session held in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook. Photo: Reuters

The US Congress has not enacted new gun control laws in the wake of the mass shootings largely because of Republican opposition.

The plaintiffs have argued that Remington bears some of the blame for the Sandy Hook massacre. They said that the Bushmaster AR-15 gun the killer used – a semi-automatic civilian version of the US military’s M-16 – had been illegally marketed by the company to civilians as a combat weapon for waging war and killing human beings.

The plaintiffs said that Connecticut’s consumer protection law forbids advertising that promotes violent, criminal behaviour and yet even though these rifles have become the “weapon of choice for mass shooters” Remington’s ads “continued to exploit the fantasy of an all-conquering lone gunman”. One of the ads, they noted, stated: “Forces of opposition, bow down.”

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