USA TODAY International Edition
Shooters’ guns legal
The two suspects came armed with semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Three mass shootings that killed 34 people over the past week involved semiautomatic weapons and magazines capable of holding dozens of bullets – all of which were legal to purchase by the shooters.
In Dayton, Ohio, police said Sunday afternoon the shooter legally purchased his .223-caliber rifle online, then had it transferred to an arms dealer. Police said he affixed the rifle with a 100-round drum magazine and was carrying up to 250 rounds.
In El Paso, Texas, the shooter used an AK-47 variant to kill 22 people. In Gilroy, California, last week, the shooter used a similar gun based on the AK, the Soviet-developed rifle replicated worldwide.
Ohio and Texas allow the guns and the magazines to be sold. California bans the sale of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, but the Gilroy shooter legally bought his weapon in Nevada.
Most rifles that fire the .223-caliber round are in the “AR-style,” or variants of the ArmaLite AR-15 that have been produced for sports shooters and home protection.
Those rifles usually come with 30 or fewer rounds in a magazine. Increasingly, gun manufacturers have catered to shooters looking to have 40-, 60- or 100-round magazines that traditionally were shunned because they were heavy and cumbersome.
High-capacity magazines have been around for decades, but cheaper, lighter material has led to more firing consistency. A new generation of shooters created a market for the once-novelty devices, said Rick Vasquez, a former program manager for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who runs Active Crisis Consulting.
High-capacity magazines have been used in other mass shootings, including in Las Vegas; Sutherland Springs, Texas; and Parkland, Florida.
Vasquez said the Trump administration’s move to limit access to bump stock devices hinged on changing a legal definition. Magazine size bans need legislation, he said, like the federal ban that ran from 1994 to 2004. “States can regulate this pretty quickly, but I don’t see Texas or Ohio taking that up anytime soon,” Vasquez said.
In El Paso, the shooting suspect purportedly posted an online manifesto referring to a weapon similar to the AK-variant semiautomatic rifle seen in surveillance video from the Walmart in Texas.
The missive refers to the Wassenaar Arrangement Semiautomatic Rifle, or WASR-10, a Romanian AK-variant imported by American distributors. One company, Florida-based Century Arms, calls itself “North America’s Premier AK manufacturer.” Representatives from the company did not respond to inquiries from USA TODAY. It is the same type of weapon used by the shooter at the garlic festival in Northern California last week.
El Paso’s police chief noted that it was not only legal for the shooter to purchase the firearm, but Texas allows open carry of rifles in public places. “A normal individual seeing that type of weapon might be alarmed, but technically, it was in the realm of the law,” Chief Greg Allen said.