Alright folks, settlement has been reached in the Remington lawsuit and I wanted to pass on some information

I am the person who filed the lawsuit against Remington. I am the person in the media being referred to as "John Doe". I've stayed quiet and off the grid for a very long time, avoiding any media interviews and not even telling my friends I was the one who filed the suit. It has been an emotionally draining and financially expensive endeavor that has consumed my life for the last 3 years. <br><br>I wanted to tell some folks here about my experience, and use this as a chance to vent after all the years of frustration and borderline depression I developed going through the process.<br><br>I am not a lawyer, nor an anti gun person. I am a gun owner, hunter, former member of the US Military, and lifetime member of the NRA. I'm also the father of a child who was shot and killed with a Remington 700. The new media likes to spin that however they want (which is why I have generally avoided them), I am not out to ban the Rem 700 or get people not to buy them. If you want to buy a Rem 700, that is your choice, and I have no problem with that. I also don't believe "Guns Don't Kill People". My son was 16 years old, and was at his friends house when he was shot. My son was holding the gun when it went off. Somehow, the person I sued turned that into me saying my son was careless.<br><br>People have written me over the years, almost from the very beginning, telling me to drop the suit. It does nothing for you and only hurts hunters. Others have called me an "asshole" or a "piece of shit" who is trying to ruin hunting and the Rem 700 for everyone. That is not my intention, and never has been.<br><br>What I did want was answers for my family and I. My son died, and I felt the need to learn as to why. You do not bury your child and move on with life. You deal with the loss, and try and figure out some way to move forward. My way to move forward was to learn everything I could. I learned a whole lot, and the more I learned, the more I realized that I had to do something. Someone else was to blame for my sons death, and I knew I could not live with myself if I let it go. I probably could have settled with Remington, but I didn't want "hush money". I wanted answers, and I wanted the truth.<br><br>I cannot tell you everything that happened, because there are things I am not legally allowed to discuss. If you read through the lawsuit, you can find hints as to where I'm coming from on some of this. But I will tell you that the people who work at Remington Arms are not the brightest. I was able to find a lot of information on my own just by searching former employees Facebook pages. Nobody ever thought to delete anything, and if they did, it was too late because someone else had already done a screenshot of it.<br><br>Remington was in the wrong here, plain and simple. That was the whole point of the lawsuit, to prove that. The trigger is faulty, and it was not designed correctly. There are thousands of pages of documents out there that prove this. Its not hard to find, and its not hard to see that regardless of what the media has been telling you, there is no finger on the trigger in about 75% of the Rem 700 accidents.<br><br>When I first started this, my lawyer came to me and asked "Are you sure you want to do this?" I thought he was talking about the emotional toll it would take on my family and I. But what he really meant was the financial strain and time commitment we were about to embark on. He told me "This lawsuit could drag on for 5, 10, 15 years or more". I thought he was exaggerating. In reality, we are probably lucky if we got out in 3 years. <br><br>Remington (and their lawyers), dragged this on as long as they could. Every time we got ready to go to court, they would file an appeal, delaying the inevitable for another year. I've spent over $100,000 of my own money on this lawsuit. I had to hire expert witnesses, which costs tens of thousands of dollars. My lawyer came to me multiple times asking if I wanted to keep going forward with it. It isn't cheap, and it has caused me to miss out on a lot of earnings that I otherwise would have seen if I wasn't spending my money on this lawsuit. The worst part is, my settlement won't even cover what I've spent so far. <br><br>A common theme throughout this lawsuit has been Remington trying to shift the blame off them for any accidents that occur. This settlement is proof that they cannot shift the blame. There is no settlement unless they accept fault. There is no settlement unless they know they are going to lose. <br><br>In the end, I won. Remington lost, and my family and I got justice. I put my hand on the Bible in court and I swore I was telling the truth. Cody "Cody" Concedine, Remington's star witness, put his hand on the Bible and swore he was telling the truth. But it was all bullshit. Cody lied, and he did it in front of the whole courtroom. It did not work, and his lies did not hold up. <br><br>Remington can spin this however they want. Their lawyers have already begun to spin this, calling my sons death an "Accident". That is not true. Remington wants to act like this was a hunting accident. Maybe if it really was an accident, I would have let things go. But it was not an accident, it was negligence on Remington's part. They knew their trigger was faulty, and they swept it under the rug. <br><br>The settlement has prevented me from discussing any details. But I'm not going to let folks in the media spin this as them "winning" and me "losing". I'm not going to let them act like I was wrong to file the lawsuit. I'm not going to let them act like this was simply an accident and that I was a poor father who did not supervise his child. I'm not going to let people act like this was an isolated incident. Nobody knows how many people have died from the Rem 700, but I do know that there is well over 1,000 deaths because of it (and that's only the ones that have been reported and proven).<br><br>So yeah, Remington, you won. You got to keep on selling your faulty trigger. You got to keep on making millions of dollars off it. But at the end of the day, we settled this in court. You know as well as I do that you lost, and that you would have lost in court. So spin this however you want. You're not fooling anyone.<br><br>EDIT TO ADD: I understand that many people in this sub DONT believe that Remington triggers are faulty. I'm not looking to change your mind. But I implore you to put emotions aside and actually read the lawsuit. Actually read the pages and pages and pages of internal Remington documents that were entered as evidence. If you have a problem with me or anything I said, then send me a PM. Don't insult my son on his death.<br><br>EDIT NUMBER 2: I understand that folks in this sub are going to believe what they want to believe. If you think that, then so be it. But don't go around telling people that I "dropped" the lawsuit, because I didn't. And don't go saying that I was prevented from talking about it. If I was prevented from talking about it, I wouldn't be on here right now. I just wanted to let everyone know what really happened. Nobody knows better than me, and nobody has spent more time reading the lawsuit, court documents and internal Remington documents.<br><br>EDIT NUMBER 3: I understand folks are upset that I'm not answering questions about the trigger, lawsuit, settlement, etc. For those who are wondering why I am choosing not to answer questions about the lawsuit, its because I am not allowed to. I am not allowed to talk about it, period. That is part of the settlement agreement. The only thing I am allowed to talk about is that we reached a settlement, and came to an agreement.