Sandy Hook mom hopes settlement brings ‘meaningful change’
(NewsNation Now) — A decade after their children were gunned down, the families of nine victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have reached a $73 million settlement with gun manufacturer Remington.
“We were told very early on that this was almost an unwinnable battle, that it would present huge legal hurdles to overcome,” Veronique De La Rosa said during an exclusive interview on “NewsNation Prime.” Her 6-year-old son Noah Pozner was one of the lives taken too soon that tragic day.
She said the families moved forward with the lawsuit hoping it could bring meaningful change.
“We persisted because what happened was so horrific and so life changing that we had no choice but to persist. It had to somehow make a chink in that armor of the plaque of protection,” De La Rosa said.
Their lawsuit, filed in 2014, zeroed in on the way the maker of the rifle marketed its weapons to young men.
“It just became sort of a symbol of masculinity,” De La Rosa said. “A symbol of, you know, a purchasable masculinity, sort of a quick remedy for some of these young men who maybe were dealing with deep-seated inadequacies. And it was kind of a go to, and it was marketed as such, and to the so called couch commandos.”
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 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.
“Perhaps there’ll be some, you know, greater safety requirements or greater measures required from the gun manufacturers, in order for them to be fully insured as they are required to be,” De La Rosa said.