In America, it’s so easy to get weapon for mass slaughter
Allergy medication. Fireworks. Roquefort cheese and food stamps. Beer on a Sunday morning, Broadway tickets, solar panels and birth control. There it is: A list of things more difficult to get than an AR-15 rifle. In the days before he stormed a Texas school and killed two teachers and 19 of their students, Salvador Ramos purchased two assault-style rifles.
On Monday, May 16, Ramos turned 18. On Tuesday, May 17, he purchased a rifle from a federally licensed gun store. On Wednesday, May 18, he bought 375 rounds of 5.56-caliber ammunition, and on Friday he went back to buy another rifle. Who knows what he did on Thursday. And, on Tuesday, May 24, Ramos shot his grandmother in the face, took her truck and drove to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where he opened fire in a classroom with one of his brand-new rifles.
He left the other rifle in the truck he had crashed because he barely knew how to drive.
Which brings us back to the list of things more difficult to get than an AR-15 rifle:
A driver’s license. Unemployment insurance. A marriage license and an abortion
That’s right, an abortion. Conservatives are quick to wave the right-to-life banner, but they’d have zero inhibitions about selling these weapons of mass destruction out of a vending machine, like a candy bar or a soda.
As for waiting periods, some states require a woman to receive in-person counseling — then wait 24 hours — before an abortion can be performed. An AR-15? Step right up.
Last week, New York State enacted sweeping gun control laws in wake of the Texas massacre and a shooting in Buffalo, where a gunman targeted shoppers in a busy grocery store just because they were Black.
Like the Texas shooter, the Buffalo gunman, Payton Gendron, was an 18-year-old who purchased his killing machines legally.
Authorities said Gendron bought the murder weapon — a Bushmaster XM-15 — legally from a dealer in upstate Endicott He used his dad’s power drill to modify the weapon to add an illegal high-capacity magazine.
The new legislation in New York includes stronger “red flag” laws that could prevent more people deemed a threat from buying a gun, and raises the age to buy semiautomatic weapons to 21 fron 18.
“So no 18-year-old can walk in on their birthday and walk out with an AR-15,” Gov. Hochul said. “Those days are over.”
Predictably, gun store owners report that sales of semiautomatic rifles are soaring before the new age limit law takes effect — as if America needs more guns than the 393 million already in civilian hands.
Which brings us to the No. 1 thing that is more difficult to buy than an AR-15:
A handgun. In most places, if you can easily conceal the weapon, you have to wait a bit before you can buy it.
But if you need two hands to hold it, and it can kill faster than you can count, you can purchase it without a problem.
They’ll even put a ribbon on it for you. A pretty red one, to match all the blood.