U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Nine plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit against Remington Arms Co. LLC and Remington Outdoors Co. Inc., over the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012 are reportedly considering “their next steps” following an offer of almost $33 million—coming to $3.66 million per each plaintiff—according to court documents filed this week in Waterbury Superior Court.
A trial is expected to begin in several weeks, with jury selection reportedly beginning in September, NPR reported.
According to CNN and other news agencies, attorneys representing the Sandy Hook victims’ families said their clients will “consider their next steps” in a statement.
In February, according to Reuters, lawyers for the plaintiffs filed papers in court estimating the wrongful death claims could total more than $225 million and might reach above $1 billion.
Remington has already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Sandy Hook lawsuit was filed in 2014.
In December 2012, killer Adam Lanza murdered his mother, who had legally purchased guns used in the attack that left 20 schoolchildren and six adults dead, before driving to the school. She had apparently complied with all Connecticut requirements at the time.
Lanza used a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle in the shooting. Rather than be taken alive, he committed suicide when police began arriving. His mother’s body was discovered later.
Two years ago, Remington argued that it should be protected by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, passed by Congress in 2005 to prevent what the firearms industry considers “junk lawsuits” aimed at bankrupting gun makers. But in 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the lawsuit to move forward, CNN recalled in its report.
The news agency said the plaintiffs’ attorneys took a different tack, claiming the company’s “marketing strategy” is at fault.
Following the Sandy Hook tragedy, the National Rifle Association made headlines by recommending armed school security in U.S. public schools. While the gun control lobby, the media, and liberals in Congress, along with many public school officials, dismissed the recommendation, over the next few years, several schools quietly moved in that direction. Some hired off-duty police officers and in other cases, police or sheriffs’ departments assigned “school resource officers” to schools in their jurisdictions.
A third option, which was also done quietly in many cases, was to allow teacher volunteers to take training in the use of firearms and have guns on campus to protect against such attacks.
Meanwhile, families of the victims contended Remington should not be selling such firearms as the Bushmaster to private citizens. Some estimates run as high as 20 million semi-auto modern sporting rifles being in private hands, which makes the AR-15 the most popular rifle in America today.
Owners of such firearms use them for a variety of purposes including competition, recreational shooting, home defense, varmint and predator hunting and control. Many competitive shooters own more than one such rifle.
While anti-gunners claim them to be “weapons of war” that should be banned, FBI Uniform Crime statistics published annually reveal consistently that rifles of any kind, including AR-15-type guns, are used in a fraction of all homicides in any given year. More people are murdered annually with blunt instruments and various cutting instruments—primarily knives—than are killed with rifles.
There is no small irony in the fact that the National Shooting Sports Foundation is headquartered in Newtown, Connecticut where Sandy Hook Elementary was also located.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
