For decades, gun industry defenders have advanced the myth that guns don’t kill people. Sure, a gun sitting in a locked case doesn’t kill anyone, but a human brandishing one or more military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines can kill far more people, far quicker than if that person didn’t have a gun at all. Guns enable people to kill people in America by margins unmatched in any other developed nation. A major lawsuit settlement Tuesday could help put a dent in those margins.
The families of adults and children slain in 2012 at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School reached a $73 million settlement with representatives of arms maker Remington, which manufactured the military-style weaponry used to kill 20 first graders and six adults. The sickest lingering aftereffect of the killings a full decade later involves the way gun makers and the National Rifle Association persist in turning this tragedy and the parents’ suffering into a celebration of gun rights.
Which is why Tuesday’s settlement is so significant. Gun victims are finally standing up for their rights instead of leaving unchallenged the way mass-killing devices are marketed as a statement of manhood and Second Amendment preservation. Gun makers’ mission is not about the Constitution. It’s about maximizing profits. And they do it by advertising guns using macho, military imagery and associating assault rifles with patriotism and the defense of liberty.
