Running to safety: A police officer leads two women and a child from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, during the massacre. Photo: AP

The families of several victims killed by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, have filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the gun Adam Lanza used to kill 27 people - 20 of them children - and himself, according to a law firm representing them.

The plaintiffs include the families of Rachel D'Avino, 29, a behavioural therapist who had recently started working at Sandy Hook; Victoria Soto, 27, a first-grade teacher; Daniel Barden, 7, who aspired to be a firefighter and whose casket was saluted by firefighters during his funeral; and Benjamin Wheeler, 6, who could not decide whether to be an architect, palaeontologist or a lighthouse keeper. Natalie Hammond, a teacher who survived being shot in the foot, leg and hand, is also one of the plaintiffs.

The wrongful death suit is being filed in the Bridgeport, Connecticut, Superior Court, according to Josh Koskoff, of Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder, the Connecticut firm representing the families. The two-year anniversary of the shooting was on Sunday.

Mass murderer: Adam Lanza killed 27 people - his mother, 20 schoolchildren and six school employees - then turned the gun on himself. Photo: AP

Also named in the suit are Camfour, the distributor of the gun Lanza used, and Riverview Sales Incorporated, the gun shop that sold him the gun. Federal agents raided the store in 2013, just days after the shootings, and the shop later lost its federal licence to sell firearms due to record-keeping violations on gun sales. Authorities have said the gun Lanza used was purchased legally.

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The 40-page lawsuit calls the Bushmaster AR-15 used in the attacks a "military weapon" that was marketed to civilians, despite "no evidence that semi-automatic rifles are ... necessary for legitimate self-defence by law-abiding citizens".

"The risk of a mentally unstable individual gaining access to an assault rifle and unleashing its military firepower on innocent civilians is not theoretical for Bushmaster. It's a fact," Katie Mesner-Hage, one of the attorneys representing the families, said in a statement.

Bill Sherlach, the husband of Mary Sherlach, 56, a school psychologist who was killed in the shooting, says the gun industry should be held responsible for the killings.

"These companies assume no responsibility for marketing and selling a product to the general population who are not trained to use it nor even understand the power of it," he said in a statement released by the law firm. "I believe in the Second Amendment, but I also believe that the gun industry should be brought to bear the same business risk that every other business assumes when it comes to producing, marketing, and selling a product."

TNS

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