After $73M win, Sandy Hook families zero in on gun marketing
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — After agreeing to a $73 million lawsuit settlement with gun-maker Remington, the families of nine Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims say they are shifting their focus to ending firearms advertising with macho, military themes that exploit young men's insecurities, all in the hopes of preventing more mass shootings.
The families say Remington used those kinds of ads to promote its AR-15-style rifles like the one used to kill 20 young children and six educators inside the Newtown, Connecticut, school on Dec. 14, 2012.
Remington's marketing strategies are expected to be unveiled when the families' lawyers publicly release thousands of internal company documents obtained during the lawsuit. Lawyers for Remington and its insurers agreed to the disclosure as part of the settlement announced Tuesday.
“This is a case about creating change,” Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son, Dylan, was killed in the shooting, said in an interview after the settlement was announced. “Right now, I'm only waiting really to have access to the documents and to figure out how to use that to help drive safety and better practices for the sales and marketing.”
Hockley, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, has been working with other victims' relatives to stem gun violence through the Sandy Hook Promise organization.
The records could provide one of the most detailed looks yet at the push by firearms manufacturers to popularize AR-15s and similar rifles, gun industry watchers say, especially after a 10-year federal ban on such weapons expired in 2004.
Hockley and outside observers have compared the case to those that led tobacco companies to disclose damaging internal documents and later agree to billions of dollars in settlements over sickened smokers.
It's not clear when...
