The weapon that binds Sandy Hook and San Bernardino: Sandy Hook families Recklessly advertised AR-15 rifles attract the wrong hands.

David and Francine Wheeler, Mark and Jacqueline Barden, Ian and Nicole Hockley, Veronique and Leonard Pozner and Donna, Jillian, Carlee and Mathew Soto | USA TODAY

Coverage of Wednesday's mass shooting that claimed at least 14 lives and left 21 wounded in San Bernardino, Calif., has made repeated references to the murders in Newtown, Conn., that robbed us of our children, daughter and sister nearly three years ago. Comparisons to past massacres are now automatic when news breaks of the latest mass shooting: How many more dead? How many weeks or months has it been since a shooting with a higher body count?

These parallels do little more than underscore the harrowing monotony of American gun violence. We should be talking about San Bernardino and the 26 killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the same breath, but for a different reason.

One of the assailants in San Bernardino used a DPMS AR-15 semiautomatic rifle; in Sandy Hook, the shooter was armed with a Bushmaster AR-15. The DPMS and Bushmaster brands are owned by the same company, a firearms conglomerate known as Remington Outdoor, formerly the Freedom Group. In its most recent annual report, Remington boasts that it is one of the largest suppliers of these guns, which it calls modern sporting rifles, to civilians — and that the company owes its leading market share position to the Bushmaster and DPMS brands.

The fact that mass shooters are attracted to Remington's product line is hardly surprising. The AR-15 was designed as a combat weapon for the U.S. military, establishing its bona fides in the trenches of Vietnam. With semiautomatic fire and a detachable magazine, the AR-15 can unleash a torrent of bullets in a matter of seconds. For individuals bent on inflicting maximum civilian carnage, the AR-15 is the unparalleled choice. (And it is often a choice: The San Bernardino assailants were in possession of handguns but gunned down their victims with AR-15s, including the DPMS model and another made by Smith & Wesson. In Sandy Hook, the shooter selected the Bushmaster AR-15 from an extensive arsenal in his home.)

What should surprise — and horrify — us is that Remington actively promotes the AR-15's capacity to inflict mass causalities. Remington markets its AR-15s with images of soldiers and SWAT teams; it dubs various models the "patrolman" and the "adaptive combat rifle"; and it actively encourages the notion that the AR-15 bestows power and glory upon those who wield it.

Remington's advertising copy for its assault rifles has included the following: "The uncompromising choice when you demand a rifle as mission-adaptable as you are." "Forces of opposition bow down — you are single-handedly outnumbered." DPMS boasts that its GII AP4 model is "built on award-winning badassness." In an era when mass shooters are often equipped with fatigues, vests or other combat gear, this type of marketing is not only unethical, it also is reckless.

What does Remington have to say? In response to the tragedy in Sandy Hook, the company's then-CEO George Kollitides said: "It's very easy to blame an inanimate object. Any kind of instrument in the wrong hands can be put to evil use."

This familiar refrain rings hollow because it fails to acknowledge that our country continues to prove itself incapable of keeping deadly weapons out of the wrong hands. Perhaps more to the point, it ignores the fact that extolling a weapon's destructive potential might actually attract the wrong hands.

David and Francine Wheeler, parents of Benjamin Wheeler, 6. Mark and Jacqueline Barden, parents of Daniel Barden, 7. Ian and Nicole Hockley, parents of Dylan Hockley, 6. Veronique and Leonard Pozner, parents of Noah Pozner, 6. Donna Soto, mother of Victoria Soto, 27. Jillian, Carlee and Mathew Soto, sisters and brother of Victoria.

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