Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC, was an American firearm manufacturer and distributor. The company's product line revolved around semi-automatic pistol and rifle variants of the M4/AR-15 design. The company is currently in full operation and is based in Carson City, Nevada. History Bushmaster was the successor of Gwinn Firearms, founded by Mack Gwinn, Jr upon his return from the Vietnam War. Bushmaster Firearms was initially located in Bangor, Maine. It went bankrupt, was purchased by Richard Dyke in 1976, and moved to Windham, Maine. According to a Maine newspaper, Dyke later sold Bushmaster to Cerberus, while Krause Publications reports that Quality Products Company first acquired it in 1990. In 2002, Bushmaster and a Bushmaster dealer were the subjects of a civil lawsuit brought by two survivors and six families of victims of the October 2002 D.C. sniper attacks, which resulted in the deaths of ten and injuries to three people. On September 8, 2004, Bushmaster agreed to pay $550,000 of a $2.5 million settlement in the lawsuit and Bull's Eye Shooter Supply of Tacoma, Washington, the Bushmaster dealer from whom one of the perpetrators said he had shoplifted the rifle, paid $2 million. The company cited mounting legal fees and compassion for the victims and their families as the reason for settling. Dyke sold the business in 2006 for $70 million to Cerberus Capital Management. The company became part of the Freedom Group, owned by Cerberus Capital Management, in April 2006. In December 2010, Freedom Group announced that operations at the Windham, Maine, facility would cease as of March 2011. Windham Weaponry was founded by the former Bushmaster owners in 2011 in Windham, ME "to put Maine people back to work who lost their jobs" when Bushmaster moved out of state in March 2011. In December 2012, Cerberus Capital Management announced its intention to sell Bushmaster's successor company, Freedom Group. In a press release, Cerberus stated that they would "retain a financial advisor to design and execute a process to sell [their] interests in Freedom Group" (Freedom merged with the former Bushmaster company). Cerberus indicated that the decision to sell the company stemmed from publicity surrounding the use of a Bushmaster rifle in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. According to the company: "It is apparent that the Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level." Cerberus announced in