Remington Outdoor Company’s insurers have agreed to pay $73 million to families of some victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. Never before has a gun company agreed to such a payout. Gun control advocates are energized. They see it as an example of how to take down, or at least radically transform, the gun industry through litigation. For them, it represents the first step in a legal crusade they directly compare to the successful suits filed against Big Tobacco in the 1990s.

“Before we brought this case, gunmakers thought they could not be held accountable for mass shootings,” Alinor Sterling, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “This case shows they can be.”