NEW YORK (AP) — The private equity firm Cerberus will sell the firearms company that produced one of the weapons believed to have been used in the shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., calling it a "watershed event" in the national debate on gun control.

Cerberus said Tuesday that it would sell its stake in the Freedom Group, which stood at 95 percent as of a 2011 regulatory filing. Freedom Group owns the Bushmaster rifle brand, as well as Remington and other gun makes.

On Friday, 20 children were killed, 26 people in all, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S history. The gunman, Adam Lanza, is believed to have used a .223-caliber Bushmaster AR-15 rifle in the attack.

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