Breaking down the AR-15
For some, it’s a fun gun; for others, it’s a weapon of mass destruction
For some, it’s a symbol of American freedom. For others, it’s a horrific killing machine that never should have been put into the hands of civilians.
In the wake of the Parkland massacre, the polarizing AR-15 is taking center stage in the gun debate. Handguns are far more plentiful and kill more Americans every year, but it’s the menacing-looking AR-15 that has captured the nation’s attention.
Students across the country walked out of schools one month after the shooting, chanting, “What do we want? Gun control! When do we want it? Now!” Florida voters could soon get to decide — possibly as early as November — whether to stop the sale of the AR-15-style rifle, which the shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School used to kill 17 students and staff and injure 17 others.
Moti Adika owns a gun shop just a few
miles from Stoneman Douglas, and said he’ll keep selling the AR-15. He thinks efforts to ban the rifle will only push sales higher.
“When you want to sell anything in America, you know what you need to do — give it a bad name,” Adika said. “It’s just a sexy-looking gun.”
Dr. Joseph Sakran, a trauma surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, also has experience with guns. When he was a teenager, an errant bullet struck him in the throat during a dispute after a high school football game.
That brush with death inspired him to pursue a career in medicine. He keeps the bullet fragment on his nightstand.
He says the wounds caused by the AR-15 tend to be much more severe than those caused by handguns. An AR-15’s bullets travel at nearly three times the speed of a handgun, ripping through the body and mangling vital organs.
“It is pretty clear the bullet from an AR-15 causes really a different kind of destruction to the human body,” Sakran said. “You have complete destruction of the tissue — like it has been blown apart.”
‘America’s Rifle’ or ‘weapon of war’
The National Rifle Association calls the AR-15 “America’s Rifle,” but gun-control advocates consider it a personal “weapon of mass destruction” that shouldn’t be allowed in civilian hands.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, legally purchased the Smith & Wesson M&P rifle, a version of the AR-15, that he used in his attack at Stoneman Douglas High School, officials say.
The AR-15 hit the market in the early 1960s. The “AR” stands for ArmaLite, the company that developed the gun in the 1950s — not “Assault Rifle” or “Automatic Rifle.” The AR-15, a civilian version of the military’s M16 rifle, isn’t a single gun as much as a family of guns that operate similarly and are produced by a variety of manufacturers.
It is lightweight and easy to shoot with little recoil. A typical magazine holds 30 rounds of ammunition, while higher-capacity magazines can hold more bullets. An AR-15 can cost from $600 to $4,000. Bullets run from 30 cents to $1 apiece. Scopes, lights and other accessories are available to customize the gun.
Gun enthusiasts say the AR-15 is a fun gun to shoot, collect and customize, which has helped it soar in popularity. George Clay, owner of North County Tactical in North Palm Beach, said his daughters regularly shoot AR-15s because they’re easy to handle. AR-15s and their accessories account for about a quarter of his shop’s business, Clay said.
A federal assault-weapons ban restricted new AR-15 sales from 1994 to 2004. Congress let that ban expire. Fears that another assault-weapons ban could be implemented have only driven sales higher since then, Clay said.
Historically, FBI background checks — a measure of gun sales — have risen in the wake of mass shootings.
U.S. production of modern sporting rifles, which includes AR-15s and other similar types of rifles, has increased from 440,000 in 2008 to 2.1 million in 2016, according to estimates from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms industry trade association.
At Guns and Range Training Center — near downtown West Palm Beach — about half a dozen AR-15-style guns beckoned to buyers from a “sale & clearance table.” Ammo magazines filled baskets in the shop. Body armor, including armor that could be placed in a backpack, rested on shelves.
Adika says the media has given the AR-15 its reputation as an extreme weapon, which he thinks is undeserved and helps to explain why it has risen in popularity. From the movie “Platoon” to the video game “Call of Duty,” the AR-15’s appearance has become ingrained in America’s consciousness.
Gun experts say a generation of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also could have contributed to the AR-15’s rise in popularity.
AR-15 fire can be ‘devastatingly accurate’
Unlike its military cousins the M16 and M4 rifles, the AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle that fires only as fast as someone can pull the trigger. An operator’s manual for one version of the AR-15 lists the maximum effective rate of fire at 45 rounds per minute.
The military’s automatic version of the AR-15 can fire in threeround bursts or continuously with a single pull of the trigger until the ammunition is exhausted.
But even at a semi-automatic rate of fire, the AR-15 can be an efficient killing machine. U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican combat veteran who represents Florida’s Treasure Coast, wrote in a column that appeared in The New York Times that the rifle used in the Parkland massacre resembled the one he carried as a soldier.
“I have fired tens of thousands of rounds through that rifle, many in combat,” Mast wrote. “We used it because it was the most lethal — the best for killing our enemies. And I know that my community, our schools and public gathering places are not made safer by any person having access to the best killing tool the Army could put in my hands. I cannot support the primary weapon I used to defend our people being used to kill children I swore to defend.”
Infantry soldiers are trained to use their rifles in semi-automatic mode because of the improved accuracy it delivers. A U.S. Army training manual notes the “most important firing technique during fast-moving, modern combat is rapid semi-automatic fire,” and “it is surprising how devastatingly accurate rapid semi-automatic fire can be.”
A modification called a bump stock can make the AR-15 fire at a speed resembling an automatic rifle. That device was banned under Florida’s school safety law signed by Gov. Rick Scott this month. Efforts to enact an assault-weapons ban failed in the Florida Legislature.
Alex Shkop, the owner of Guns and Range Training Center, said he owns several AR-15s. He uses them to hunt pigs and go target shooting with his 14-year-old son, whom he introduced to shooting when he was 9.
The NRA says the AR-15 is used for hunting and home defense, touting it as “Americans’ best defense against terror and crime.”
Mike “The Gun Guy” Weisser, a retired gun dealer and blogger who supports tighter restrictions on firearms, disagrees.
The AR-15 isn’t ideal for hunting, other than small game such as rabbits and prairie dogs, Weisser said. It also isn’t ideal for home defense because the bullet can travel through walls or windows, endangering others, he said.
“It’s just marketing stuff from the gun industry,” he said. “To me, it’s not a self-defense gun at all. These are weapons of war. There is no question about it.”
Handguns kill more, but AR-15s used in massacres
Handguns are much more likely to be used in homicides, according to incomplete FBI statistics that report 11,004 firearm deaths in 2016, including 374 involving rifles and 7,105 involving handguns.
Handguns are much more common than rifles. Of an estimated 265 million civilian guns, 113 are handguns, according to a 2017 study by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.
Shkop estimated that nine of 10 guns he sells are handguns
But AR-15-style guns have emerged as a common choice for mass shooters in recent years. Since 2012, many of the deadliest mass shootings have involved AR-15-style guns.
AR-15s were used in the shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 people; the Sutherland Springs, Texas, shooting that killed 25 people and an unborn baby; the San Bernardino shooting that killed 14; the Sandy Hook shooting that killed 26; and the shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., that killed 12.
Orlando Pulse shooter Omar Mateen carried a Sig Sauer MCX semi-automatic rifle, a gun similar to the AR-15.
Cruz fired more than 100 rounds in a the span of the roughly six-minute shooting at Stoneman Douglas, officials say. Officials say Cruz left behind at least 180 rounds of ammunition inside 30-round magazines that bore Nazi swastika symbols.
Other types of firearms have produced horrific death counts in mass shootings. The Virginia Tech shooter was armed with two semi-automatic handguns and killed 32. The Charleston church shooter killed nine with a semiautomatic pistol.
Sakran, the trauma surgeon working in Baltimore, said he sees the toll of America’s gun violence epidemic far too often.
“The worst part of what I have to do is go out to that waiting room,” he said. “That’s somebody’s mother, father, son or daughter, and I am about to destroy their world.”