Remington verdict may signal more legal woes for Ruger, gunmakers
With Newtown families invoking the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act to win a landmark settlement with Remington, gun-makers could be exposed to a fresh wave of litigation nationally — including Ruger, which has its headquarters in Fairfield.
Families of nine victims announced this month they had accepted a $73 million settlement offer from insurers of bankrupt Remington.
Plaintiffs had filed wrongful-death lawsuits seeking to hold the gun-maker liable for manufacturing the weapon used in the 2012 school massacre in
Newtown. The settlement ended up hinging on what the families asserted was overly aggressive marketing of assault rifles to people who could use them for criminal acts, in violation of provisions of
Connecticut
Unfair Trade
Practices Act.
During a conference call on
Thursday, Ruger
CEO Chris Killoy addressed the
Remington insurance settlement briefly in response to a question, without stating any possible ramifications for gun manufacturers.
“We’re not involved in that case, and I think it’s important to recognize what the settlement was — and what it wasn’t,” he said.
“There was no finding of liability there — the case never went to a jury — and this was a decision by the insurance companies to settle, so I really can’t speak to their thinking on the matter.”
In its annual reports the past several years, however, Ruger has warned investors its results could be affected by “punitive damages arising from accidents involving firearms or the criminal misuse of firearms,” and a “significant settlement” could represent a financial risk in addition to any judicial decisions or changes in law.
Ruger’s chief financial officer did not respond to a Hearst Connecticut Media Group request for comment about whether the Newtown settlement might prompt the company to reassess how much money it puts in reserve to cover the costs of any future litigation.
A spokesperson for the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation echoed Killoy’s comments that the insurer payout did not represent a legal precedent, simply an agreement between parties, and expressed skepticism that other plaintiffs could prove that a gun advertisement could provoke someone into committing a criminal act.
“Firearms manufacturers ... cannot be
Ruger reported its product liability insurance premiums increased by a third last year to $1.1 million, while warning not all risks are covered and that carriers have the option of not extending policies at all.
held liable for crimes committed by a disassociated third party,” said Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. “Commercial speech, as long as it is truthful, does not incite violence or criminal activity. It’s still protected speech.”
Ruger reported its product liability insurance premiums increased by a third last year to $1.1 million, while warning not all risks are covered and that carriers have the option of not extending policies at all.
Ruger’s insurance premiums add up to only a small fraction of the company’s earnings last year. Ruger’s 2021 profits shot up more than 70 percent to $156 million, with sales up nearly 30 percent to $728 million.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong is among 14 attorneys general nationally to signal support for a lawsuit filed by Mexico in Massachusetts federal court against several major manufacturers. Defendants in the Mexico lawsuit include Ruger, Hartford-based Colt Industries and Smith & Wesson, which last year moved its headquarters to Tennessee from Springfield, Mass., while shuttering a manufacturing plant in Deep River.
Colt is Connecticut’s biggest gun manufacturer, producing more than 63,000 weapons in Hartford in 2019, with Charter Arms a distant second with just over 19,000 revolvers manufactured in Shelton that year.
Ruger makes most of its guns at three plants — in Newport, N.H., Mayodan, N.C., and Prescott, Ariz.
The company is in the process of doubling its Mayodan space to accommodate production of lever-action rifles and other models under the Marlin Firearms brand once based in North Haven, after acquiring the business last year from Remington, which had moved Marlin production to its factory in Ilion, N.Y.
Ruger and other gun manufacturers have seen sales boom in the past on the heels of mass shootings that have prompted Connecticut and other states to impose tighter requirements on purchases. And protests nationally contributed to a massive surge in gun sales in 2020 after the death of George Floyd while being detained by Minneapolis police.
The federal government tracked an overall 60 percent increase in units manufactured in the United States — putting nearly 2.4 million more guns into stores and homes that year. Nine-millimeter pistols surpassed rifles as the top seller in 2020 for the first time since at least 2007, the first year the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has data for online.
Interest has continued into this year, with the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation reporting record attendance in January at its annual Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show in Las Vegas.