Nine families whose loved ones were murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre have settled with Remington Arms, the gun manufacturer whose semiautomatic rifle was used in the 2012 shooting, according to a new court filing.
The Waterbury, Connecticut filing, first reported by ABC News, did not reveal any financial terms, nor did it disclose when the settlement was reached. It brings an end to a seven-year battle between the families and the company, which is now the first gunmaker held liable for a mass shooting.
Lawyers for the families, who represent five adults and four children who were killed, said the settlement was $73 million. At a news conference in Trumbell Tuesday, an attorney for the family blasted the gun used in the shooting, noting its use by the military as “the most lethal weapon, the most destructive weapon."
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“It's not a modern sporting rifle. It's not a family Swiss Army Knife,” attorney Josh Koskoff said “It's a combat weapon.”
Adam Lanza, 20, used Remington’s Bushmaster XM15-E2S semiautomatic rifle—a gun similar to the M16s used by the U.S. military—to kill 20 first-graders and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Some of the Newtown, Connecticut, families sued Remington in 2015 for wrongful death, claiming the gunmaker willfully provided citizens with a gun designed for military and police use.
Veronique De La Rosa, the mother of 6-year-old victim Noah Pozner, commended the significance of holding the gun industry accountable for the massacre.
“Today marks an inflection point when our duty of care to our children as a society finally supersedes the bottom line of an industry that made such an atrocity of Sandy Hook possible to begin with,” De La Rosa said. “Today’s a day of accountability for an industry that has thus far enjoyed operating within unity and impunity, and for this I am grateful.”
Hannah D’Avino, the sister of victim Rachel D’Avino, 28, said her sibling was just about to get engaged before the massacre and had been taking fertility tests.
“It should not have happened, and it should not happen to anybody else,” D’Avino said at the news conference.
The gunmaker, which went bankrupt in 2020, said it could not be held liable due to a federal statute that protects gun makers from the actions their customers take with their weapons. It offered nearly $33 million to the families last year to settle, but that was eventually increased.
The case was set to go to trial in September.
