He says the AR-15 has such a strong capacity that gunmen “don’t really need to aim, they just need to shoot at the crowd of people.As part of its new ‘Stop Targeting Kids’ campaign, the IHF is calling on the Government to protect children in Ireland from online junk food marketing and to introduce a Public Health (Obesity) Act and introduce fresh measures to combat the direct marketing of foods high in fat, salt and sugar to teenagers online. That does not deflect from the fact that mass shooters often utilize an AR-15, likely for the factors mentioned above.īesides the Las Vegas shooting, which was carried out from a long distance, “mass shootings are relatively close up,” Lindley says. Steve Lindley, program manager of Brady United Against Gun Violence, a gun violence prevention organization, says he would hesitate to call the AR-15 the “weapon of choice for mass shooters,” but still describes the AR-15 as a “weapon of war.”
Read More: How ‘Stand Your Ground’ and Similar Laws Work Is the AR-15 the leading firearm used in mass shootings?
“Once Colt no longer held the exclusive rights to manufacture AR-style firearms in the United States, dozens of other companies jumped at the opportunity to start making and selling these rifles to the public,” Metesh says. Metesh also attributes part of its rise in popularity to the boom of sales seen once the patent for the gun expired in the 1970s. That’s not to say that an AR-15 cannot cost thousands, but by comparison, a pistol may cost around the same price despite its much smaller size and capacity. The cost of an AR-15 varies depending on quality, but they are typically priced at $400 and up. Others say that price definitely plays a key role in its high demand. The rifle was marketed to civilians as a hunting and sporting rifle by Colt, though the “big core concepts” that designers worked on was creating a firearm that was “lightweight and modular,” Michael says. In states like California and under the federal government’s 1994 assault weapon ban, the AR-15 is categorized as such, per the Giffords Law Center.ĪrmaLite originally marketed the AR-15 to the military, but was unsuccessful, leading the company to sell the patent to manufacturing company Colt in 1963, according to Metesh. Logan Metesh, a firearms historian, tell TIME that historically, an assault rifle was defined as a fully-automatic fire rifle and that today, an assault rifle is defined as a “firearm capable of selective-fire,” which he says precludes the AR-15 from being in that category.īut Michael says the definition of an “assault weapon” is more legislative than technical, meaning the criteria varies based on the law. The National Shooting Sports Association does not classify the AR-15 as such, instead listing it as a modern sporting rifle.
Whether the AR-15 is considered an assault weapon has become a heated debate. Read More: Raising Children in America Means Living in Fear That They’ll Be Shot
Experts vary in their description of what AR stands for (there’s discrepancy about whether it stands for the company that designed the firearm, “ArmaLite,” or if it’s in reference to the “ArmaLite rifle”), but all countered against the misconception that it stands for “assault rifle.” The AR-15 is a semi-automatic self-loading rifle first produced in the mid-1950s.
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