Spotlight on weapon
AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles have increasingly shown up in mass shootings in America.
A Las Vegas concert. An Orlando nightclub. An elementary school in Newtown, Conn. A Texas church. And now a high school in Parkland, Fla.
AR-15-style rifles have increasingly appeared in American mass shootings, including the deadliest high school shooting in the nation’s modern history at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Wednesday.
The National Rifle Association called the AR-15 — the semiautomatic, civilian version of the military’s M-16 — the “most popular rifle in America” and estimated Americans own more than 8 million of them.
The name AR-15 (AR stands for ArmaLite, not assault rifle, which is a common misconception) is trademarked by the firearms manufacturer Colt. Since the patent on the weapon’s operating system ran out, a host of other manufacturers began making their own variants of the popular rifle. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm industry’s trade association, campaigned to have AR-platform rifles re- ferred to as “modern sporting rifles,” or MSRs, to avoid both confusion and the politically loaded “assault rifle” label.
The NRA said “the AR-15 has soared in popularity” because it’s “customizable, adaptable, reliable and accurate.”
“They’re accurate, and they can basically shoot as quickly as you can pull the trigger,” according to a statement from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Dean Hazen, owner of The Gun Experts in Mahomet, Ill., and a master firearms instructor, said the AR-15 has “gotten a bad rap.” He said mass shooters generally don’t know much about guns and choose the AR-15 because of the reputation it has gotten from being used in other mass shootings. “Thank God they don’t know any better because if they did, they would use much more effective weapons,” Hazen said.
Among the mass shootings in the USA in which AR-15-style rifles were used, according to the Stanford Geospatial Center and Stanford Libraries and USA TODAY research:
❚ Feb. 24, 1984: Tyrone Mitchell, 28, used an AR-15, a Stoeger 12-gauge shotgun and a Winchester 12-gauge shotgun to kill two and wound 12 at 49th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles before killing himself.
❚ Oct. 7, 2007: Tyler Peterson, 20, used an AR-15 to kill six and injure one at an apartment in Crandon, Wis., before killing himself.
❚ June 20, 2012: James Eagan Holmes, 24, used an AR-15-style .223caliber Smith and Wesson rifle with a 100-round magazine, a 12-gauge Remington shotgun and two .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic pistols to kill 12 and injure 58 at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.
❚ Dec. 14, 2012: Adam Lanza, 20, used an AR-15-style rifle, a .223-caliber Bushmaster, to kill 27 people — his mother, 20 students and six teachers — in Newtown, Conn., before killing himself.
❚ June 7, 2013: John Zawahri, 23, used an AR-15-style .223-caliber rifle and a .44-caliber Remington revolver to kill five and injure three at a home in Santa Monica, Calif., before he was killed.
❚ March 19, 2015: Justin Fowler, 24, used an AR-15 to kill one and injure two on a street in Little Water, N.M., before he was killed.
❚ May 31, 2015: Jeffrey Scott Pitts, 36, used an AR-15 and .45-caliber handgun to kill two and injure two at a store in Conyers, Ga., before he was killed.
❚ Dec. 2, 2015: Syed Rizwan Farook, 26, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, used two AR-15-style, .223-caliber Remington rifles and two 9 mm handguns to kill 14 and injure 21 in San Bernardino, Calif., before they were killed.
❚ June 12, 2016: Omar Mateen, 29, used an AR-15-style rifle (a Sig Sauer MCX) and a 9mm Glock semiautomatic pistol to kill 49 people and injure 50 at an Orlando nightclub before he was killed.
❚ Oct. 1, 2017: Stephen Paddock, 64, used a stockpile of guns, including an AR-15, to kill 58 people and injure hundreds at a music festival in Las Vegas before he killed himself.
❚ Nov. 5, 2017: Devin Kelley, 26, used an AR-15-style Ruger rifle to kill 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, before he was killed.