# AR-15 style rifle

An AR-15 style rifle is a lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on the Colt AR-15 design. An AR-15 style rifle is referred to as a modern sporting rifles (MSR) by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms industry trade association, and by some firearm manufacturers.

## Quotes
### 1962

* The Vietnamese Unit Commanders and US Advisers who participated in the evaluation consider the AR-15 Rifle to be a more desirable weapon for use in Vietnam than the M1 Rifle, BAR [Browning Automatic Rifle], Thompson Sub-Machine Gun, and M1 Carbine for the following reasons: (a) It is easier to train the Vietnamese troops to use the AR-15 than the M1 Rifle, BAR, M1 Carbine, or the Sub-Machine Gun. (b) The AR-15's physical characteristics are well suited to the small stature of the Vietnamese soldier (see photographs I and 2, Annex 17). (c) It is easier to maintain the AR-15 both in the field and in garrison than the M1 Rifle, BAR, Sub-Machine Gun, or the M1 Carbine. (d) The ruggedness and durability of the AR-15 are comparable to that of the M1 Rifle and superior to that of the BAR, SubMachine Gun, and M1 Carbine. (e) The AR-15 imposes less logistical burden than any of the four principal weapons presently being used by Vietnamese Forces. (f) The AR-15 is tactically more versatile than any present weapon being used by Vietnamese Forces. (g) In semi-automatic fire, the accuracy of the AR-15 is considered comparable to that of the M1 Rifle, and superior to that of the M1 Carbine. (h) In automatic fire, the accuracy of the AR-15 is considered comparable to the Browning Automatic Rifle and superior to the Sub-Machine Gun.
** Advanced Research Projects Agency (August 20, 1962). Report of Task 13A: Test of ArmaLite Rifle AR-15. Retrieved on October 4, 2018.

### 1966

* You see this AR-15, she’s hot and she’s mean, and she ain’t built for love or fun. And yet this AR-15 is part of the team. She’s one son of a gun of a gun.
** Barry Sadler, from the song "One Son-of-a-Gun of a Gun" from the album "SSgt Barry Sadler of the Green Berets sings The A Team" on RCA (Drabold, Will; Fitzpatrick, Alex (February 20, 2018). "The Florida School Shooter Used An AR-15 Rifle. Here's What to Know About the Gun". Time. Retrieved on September 28, 2018. ).

### 1981

* The farsighted Willard G. Wyman, the commanding general of the Continental Army Command, had asked Stoner to design a rifle precisely to take advantage of the “payoff” of smaller bullets. The AR-15, the precursor of the M-16, used .22-caliber bullets instead of the .30-caliber that had long been standard for the Army. As early as 1928, an Army “Caliber Board” had conducted firing experiments in Aberdeen, Maryland, and had then recommended a move toward smaller ammunition...
** Fallows, James (June 1981). "M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story". The Atlantic. Retrieved on October 4, 2018.

### 2009

* Over the past few years the gun industry has become increasingly dominated by manufacturers selling only AK-47 and AR-15 type assault rifles (newly christened “black rifles” by gunmakers to make them a little more cuddly and a little less killy), new high-powered handguns ranging from revolvers with the penetration power of rifles to AK-47 pistols, to anti-armor 50 caliber sniper rifles. Don’t believe me? Pick up a copy of Shotgun News and compare the number of gun ads for “traditional” hunting rifles (a handful) to those for assault rifles (all the rest). Military-style weapons are the guns that are flying off the shelves and into the homes of people frightened about the “change” that an Obama Administration represents.
** Sugarmann, Josh (March 15, 2009). "NRA Members Spontaneously Combust". HuffPost. Retrieved on October 17, 2018.
* Guns are now the only consumer product manufactured in America not regulated by a federal agency for health and safety... When presented with guns’ unique niche in the pantheon of consumer products, the industry and its cheerleaders like the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) go into a well-practiced spiel of how in fact they’re actually the most regulated industry in America — citing dealer and manufacturer licensing, the minimal paperwork necessary to buy a gun under federal law, the Brady background check all buyers must go through to purchase a weapon from a licensed dealer, and the fact that ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] is allowed to check a dealer’s sales records once a year (a privilege the agency has the manpower to employ on a far less frequent basis). Yet these are sales standards, not product safety standards. ATF lacks any of the health and safety authority that is routinely granted — and usually expected by the American public — for other consumer products... And as the gun industry continues to exploit its unique status with increasingly lethal military style weapons for the civilian market, this disparity can only become more evident.
** Sugarmann, Josh (July 23, 2009). "Gunmakers Now Last Unregulated Industry". HuffPost. Retrieved on October 17, 2018.

### 2010

* Consider your man card reissued. If it's good enough for the professional, it's good enough for you. Bushmaster. The world's finest commercial AR-platform rifle.
** Bushmaster Firearms International advertisement, 2010 through 2012 (Nolan, Hamilton (December 17, 2012). "Bushmaster Firearms, Your Man Card Is Revoked". Gawker. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; Ray, Esha; McShane, Larry (November 14, 2017). "Gunmaker’s ads influenced Adam Lanza to buy AR-15 assault rifle for Sandy Hook massacre, lawyer says". New York Daily News. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; Waldman, Paul (December 21, 2012). "Not man enough? Buy a gun". CNN. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; Shuffelton, Amy (August 24, 2015). "Consider Your Man Card Reissued: Masculine Honor and Gun Violence". Educational Theory 65 (4): 387–403. DOI:10.1111/edth.12123.; Hussey, Kristin; Rojas, Rick (April 1, 2018). "Remington’s Bankruptcy Stalls Ruling in Sandy Hook Families’ Suit". The New York Times. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; Beckett, Lois (October 14, 2016). "Sandy Hook families cannot hold gun company liable in massacre, judge rules". The Guardian. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; Larson, Erik (June 13, 2016). "How Macho Ads for Assault Rifles Might Backfire". Bloomberg News. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; Gray, Emma (December 17, 2012). "Bushmaster Rifle Ad Reminds Us To Ask More About Masculinity And Gun Violence". HuffPost. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; Cross, Katherine (August 30, 2018). "Toxic gaming culture can’t fully explain the Jacksonville Madden shooting". The Verge (Vox Media). Retrieved on September 26, 2018. ).
* Classified reports from Vietnam were giving the AR-15 high marks and providing a surprise. Reports from the field claimed that when a bullet fired from the AR-15 struck a man, it inflicted devastating injuries. The causes were apparently twofold. First, the metal jacket of early AR-15 bullets tended to shatter on impact, sending fragmentation slicing through victims. (In the army, this was variously seen as attractive and worrisome. In classified correspondence, some officers were thrilled by the perceived wounding characteristics, which one prominent army doctor described as "explosive effects." Others wondered whether the .223 round might be illegal under international convention.) Second, the bullets often turned sideways inside a victim, a phenomenon known as yaw. In one respect, the effects of yaw somewhat resemble what could be seen on the surface of a lake when a speedboat turned sharply. In this case, the energy delivery manifested itself as a shock wave within a human body, which could create stretching or rupturing injury to tissue not directly in a bullet's path. By turning, the bullet also crushed and cut more tissue as it passed through a victim, creating a larger wound channel.
** Chivers, C. J. (2010). The Gun. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780743270762.
* ArmaLite was an infant and an upstart, a company that began as a workshop in the Hollywood garage of George Sullivan, the patent counsel for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. Sullivan was an engineer fascinated with the possibilities of applying new materials to change the way rifles looked and felt. In 1953, he met Paul Cleaveland, secretary of the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation, at an industry luncheon. The pair talked about lightweight firearms and new ways to manufacture them. Cleaveland mentioned the conversation to Richard Boutelle, Fairchild's president, who was a gun buff, too. Boutelle and Sullivan agreed to collaborate, and ArmaLite was founded in 1954 as a tiny Fairchild division. It hired a former Marine, Eugene Stoner, as a designer. One of the early creations was the AR-15, made at the informal request of an Army general who wanted a prototype rifle that would fire a small, high-speed round. The AR-15 looked like nothing else in military service. It had an aluminum receiver, plastic furniture, and an odd-looking carrying handle. It was thirty-nine inches long. It weighed, when unloaded, roughly 6.5 pounds, about half the weight of an automatic M14. Its appearance — small, dark, lean, and synthetically futuristic — stirred emotions. To its champions, the AR-15 was an embodiment of fresh thinking. Critics saw an ugly toy. Wherever one stood, no one denied the ballistics were intriguing. Stoner had designed a narrow but powerful new cartridge, the .223, for his weapon. The cartridge's propellant and the AR-15's twenty-inch barrel worked together to move a tiny bullet along at ultrafast speeds — in excess of thirty-two hundred feet per second, almost three times the speed of sound.
** Chivers, C. J. (October 27, 2010). "The Gun: A Violent History of the AK-47". Esquire. Retrieved on October 4, 2018.
* One of the greatest talents of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry has been their ability exploit high-profile events to pump up gun sales: Bill Clinton, the Brady Bill, the federal assault weapons “ban,” Y2K, September 11, and now, of course, Barack Obama. Regardless of the event, the solution remains the same: buy a gun. And if industry and gun fan mags are any indication, it should be an AR-15 assault rifle.
** Sugarmann, Josh (May 4, 2010). "The Collapse of the AR-15 Assault Weapon Market". HuffPost. Retrieved on October 17, 2018.
* The Freedom Group, a “family” of gun companies cobbled together by Cerberus Capital Management (the former owners of Chrysler, among many other things), has just filed new documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in anticipation of a long-threatened stock IPO (Initial Public Offering). And the picture isn’t pretty. Freedom Group companies run the gamut from sporting arms to assault weapons. In addition to Bushmaster and DPMS (two leading manufacturers of AR-15 type assault rifles), companies and brands that comprise Freedom Group include: Remington, Marlin, Harrington & Richardson, New England Firearms, L.C. Smith, Dakota Arms, Advanced Armament Corporation, and Barnes Bullets. Freedom Group states that it has the number one U.S. market position in shotguns (31 percent), ammunition (33 percent), traditional rifles (37 percent), and “modern sporting rifles” (48 percent).
** Sugarmann, Josh (May 20, 2010). "Obama Gun Boom Comes to an Official End". HuffPost. Retrieved on October 17, 2018.

### 2012

* The Bushmaster a variant of a type of gun called the AR-15 ... which was designed and developed for military use roughly during the Vietnam War period. It is one of a variety of assault rifles that militaries of the world developed when they realized that most soldiers do not — when they're engaged in combat — do not take accurate aim, do not fire at long distances, but rather just spray bullets in the general direction of the enemy at short to medium range. When the military accepted this as a fact — that soldiers are not marksmen, and they tend to just fire in bursts at ambiguous targets, and in fact most battlefield injuries are the result of just being where the bullet is and not someone actually aiming at you — the militaries of the world said, 'OK, we need a type of gun to give our soldiers that will do just that.' ... This was the genesis of the assault rifle. The first one was developed by the Germans in 1944. It was called the StG-44. The Soviet army quickly ... made a design similar to it, which is called the AK-47, probably the most widely used rifle in the world.
** Tom Diaz, policy analyst for the Violence Policy Center, on the Bushmaster XM-15 used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting ("Assault-Style Weapons In The Civilian Market". Fresh Air. NPR. December 20, 2012. ).
* Colt Manufacturing, which had the military contract for the M-16, recognized that there could also be a civilian market for this rifle. So they developed what they called the AR-15, which was actually the original developmental designation of the rifle. The only difference between these rifles that are sold on the civilian market and the rifles that are issued to our soldiers and soldiers all over the world is that the purely military rifle is capable of firing what's called fully automatic fire. That means if you pull the trigger and hold it down, the gun will continue to fire until it expends all the ammunition in what is known as the magazine, the thing that holds the bullets. Machine guns have been outlawed in the United States, effectively, for civilian use since the mid-1980s. So what these guns need to be configured to be are semiautomatic. That means you must pull the trigger for each round fired. There's a question about rate of fire which the industry and the NRA and other advocates of having these guns in civilian hands make, and it goes like this: Well, the military guns are fully automatic, therefore they're technically machine guns, but the civilians guns are not. They're semiautomatic, and therefore they're not assault rifles. That's a distinction without a difference, as many writers on the gun side noted in the early 1980s, when even the industry called them assault rifles, until they became involved in unfortunate incidents...The reason I say it's a distinction without a difference is that the trigger can be pulled at a very rapid rate in semiautomatic fire, and it's actually more accurate...in automatic fire the gun has a tendency to rise upward, to travel. If you go to shooting ranges where automatic weapons are used, you'll often see, in the ceiling, bullet holes because you pull the trigger and the characteristic sounds of - bbrruppp - the gun will rise. Semiautomatic fire doesn't do that, which is why the military encourages soldiers to shoot semiautomatic rather than automatic whenever possible.
** Tom Diaz ("Assault-Style Weapons In The Civilian Market". Fresh Air. NPR. December 20, 2012. ).
* What the gun industry has done is sort of appeal to the inner soldier, the insurrectionist feelings and high-tech desires to market these military-style guns. Now, they don't call them assault rifles. They have a couple of terms they use. They call them tactical rifles. They call them modern sporting rifles. I personally don't care what you call them; they are basically assault rifles, and their purpose is to kill people.
** Tom Diaz ("Assault-Style Weapons In The Civilian Market". Fresh Air. NPR. December 20, 2012. Retrieved on October 6, 2018. ).
* The grotesque irony? The National Shooting Sports Foundation locale. They’ve taken the lead in working to rebrand assault weapons as modern sporting rifles.
** Josh Sugarmann, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut (Olinger, David (December 21, 2012). "War comes home for founder of group fighting for assault weapons ban". The Denver Post. Retrieved on October 19, 2018. ).
* Last Friday, 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed 26 students and teachers at Sandy Hook School with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Much of the ensuing debate has focused on ways to regulate and potentially ban weapons like these. So, how many auto-loading rifles actually exist in America? In its 2011 report “The Militarization of the U.S. Civilian Firearms Market,” the non-partisan Violence Policy Center noted that “selling militarized firearms to civilians—i.e., weapons in the military inventory or weapons based on military designs—has been at the point of the industry’s civilian design and marketing strategy since the 1980s.” And in its 2011 annual report to investors, Smith & Wesson Holding Company noted that there was a $489 million domestic, non-military market for "modern sporting rifles," a euphemism for auto-loading, assault-style rifles. Modern sporting rifles are perhaps the fastest-growing segment of the domestic long gun industry. From 2007 to 2011, according to the Freedom Group’s most recent annual report, domestic consumer long gun sales grew at a compound annual rate of 3 percent; modern sporting rifle sales grew at a 27 percent rate.
** Peters, Justin (December 20, 2012). "How Many Assault Weapons Are There in America? How Much Would It Cost the Government To Buy Them Back?". Slate. Retrieved on November 4, 2018.
* The feverish demand for military-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines is outstripping supply, ahead of legislative efforts to ban them in the wake of mass shootings.... Online retailers are running out of semiautomatic rifles—known variously as assault weapons, tactical rifles or modern sporting rifles -- and magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds. Brick-and-mortar gun shops are also working furiously to meet demand.
** Smith, Aaron (December 31, 2012). "Assault rifles are selling out". CNN. Retrieved on November 7, 2018.

### 2013

* The Washington Post style guide describes the AR-15 as a "modern assault weapon."
** Blake, Aaron (January 17, 2013). "Is it fair to call them "assault weapons"’?". The Washington Post. Retrieved on September 28, 2018.
* Assault weapons were designed for and should be used on our battlefields, not on our streets. There is no inalienable right to own and operate 100-round clips on AR-15 assault rifles.
** Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, at the introduction of the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 (Gibson, Ginger (January 24, 2013). "Feinstein floats assault weapons ban". Politico. Retrieved on September 6, 2018. ).
* Those design features in a civilian market have horrific consequences. So you can call it whatever you want — tactical rifle, black rifle, assault rifle, modern sporting rifle. It has the capability that the military wanted for warfare...It's just a fact that hunting has been in serious decline, so those kinds of guns just don't sell as well. Well, you're in business, you got to sell something. These assault rifles — these military-style rifles — appeal to a broader range of people.
** Tom Diaz (Chang, Ailsa (June 24, 2013). "Why The AR-15 Is More Than Just A Gun". Morning Edition. NPR. Retrieved on September 3, 2018. )
* It's just a fact that hunting has been in serious decline, so those kinds of guns just don't sell as well. Well, you're in business, you got to sell something. These assault rifles — these military-style rifles — appeal to a broader range of people.
** Tom Diaz (Chang, Ailsa (June 24, 2013). "Why The AR-15 Is More Than Just A Gun". Morning Edition. NPR. Retrieved on November 7, 2018. )
* AR-style modern sporting rifles are a major contributor to the success of the American firearms industry, no question.
** Mike Bazinet of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (Chang, Ailsa (June 24, 2013). "Why The AR-15 Is More Than Just A Gun". Morning Edition. NPR. Retrieved on September 3, 2018. ).
* The AR-15 is, essentially, a gun that was designed to inflict maximum casualties, death, and injury, in close to medium range. That's what it does. The real problem is that we allow that kind of firepower to come into a theater or into a first-grade class. The names you see now are 'modern sporting rifle,' 'tactical rifle.' Those are all just euphemisms for 'assault weapon.' They're being very rational as marketers and as businesses—and as industries. They're only doing what cellphone companies do to make cellphones look different and be more attractive. The difference is what they're selling is lethality.
** Tom Diaz (Lisson, Meghan (April 25, 2013). "Run on Guns: AR-15s Sales Soar". CNBC. Retrieved on October 5, 2018. ).
* In 1994, the AR-15 hit a speed bump. Congress passed a 10-year ban on "assault weapons," which legislators defined as semiautomatic rifles that included two or more specific features, like pistol-type handle grips and metal mounts, called bayonet lugs, to which bayonets could be attached. People who already owned such rifles were allowed to keep them. The ban made the rifles only more desirable for some consumers. To meet the demand, gun makers removed prohibited features, like bayonet lugs, and marketed them as legal alternatives. "It was unfortunately an industrywide event where companies were openly bragging about their ability to sell guns in circumvention of the law," says Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a research and gun-control advocacy group in Washington. The industry produced an estimated one million modified AR-15-style rifles during the ban—more than it had produced of the original version in the previous decade.
** Singer, Natasha (February 2, 2013). "The Most Wanted Gun in America". The New York Times. Retrieved on October 5, 2018.
* Hunters, quite frequently, will not be impressed by the “tactical coolness factor” that has drawn many shooters into the shop looking for a new gun ... The tactical coolness factor does, on the other hand, attract a lot of first-time gun buyers. Many of them are younger and unfamiliar with firearms, making them prime candidates to be unsure of what to look for or even what they want. Unlike many of the hunting demographic, these potential buyers will likely be interested only in tactical guns, and the military-ish looks and features will be a big selling point with them.
** Shooting Sports Retailer magazine, Summer 2013 annual "How to Sell" issue (Sugarmann, Josh (January 1, 2014). "Gun Industry Hawks Militarized Products at Vegas SHOT Show". HuffPost. Retrieved on October 19, 2018. ; Freedom Group’s Militarized Marketing. Violence Policy Center. Retrieved on October 19, 2018. The Militarized Marketing of Bushmaster Assault Rifles. Violence Policy Center (April 2018). Retrieved on October 19, 2018.).
* Very little separates a civilian AR-15 from the M-16s that are the standard-issue rifle for the American military. The military versions are semi-automatic, but also come with the ability to fire in a three-round burst; this feature is rarely used.
** Jones, Brian (November 1, 2013). "Another AR-15 Rampage? Here Are The Facts About America's Most Popular Rifle". Business Insider. Retrieved on October 28, 2018.

### 2014

* Online gun sweepstakes have become one of the most useful tools for campaign outreach in the 2014 Republican primaries.... Lee Bright, a state senator from South Carolina who is challenging Senator Lindsey Graham in the Republican primary, has given away two guns, one online and one by direct mail. In the online drawing, the prize was an AR-15 rifle.... In Colorado, Mr. Brophy was not the only Republican in the governor’s race who held a gun raffle. Tom Tancredo, the former congressman and presidential candidate, also had one. His pitchman, the rocker and N.R.A. board member Ted Nugent, had a dark message. “We all better wake up and fight back together before it’s too late,” Mr. Nugent wrote in an email to supporters. “Enter to win a semiautomatic AR-15 — when you’re done, consider making a donation of $25 or more to help Tom keep our freedoms protected.”
** Peters, Jeremy W. (April 17, 2014). "G.O.P. Discovers Useful Voter Outreach Tool: Gun Sweepstakes". The New York Times. Retrieved on October 27, 2018.
* The AR-15 platform, usually a .223-caliber rifle with a 30-round magazine, is popular because of its ease of use and cleaning, and its reliability.
** Boyle, John (December 3, 2014). "Military-style AR-15 rifles: 'The market is saturated'". USA Today. Retrieved on October 20, 2018.

### 2015

* The Trace: Does it matter what kind of gun a victim is shot with? David H. Newman: It matters a great deal. If it’s a small caliber gun, the wounds are visibly smaller. If it’s a shotgun wound, it’s more visually striking. I’ve seen children who have been shot with a shotgun. I remember this one boy, I think he was eight, he and a friend were playing with a shotgun, and his friend shot him in the face. When he came in, he was still very much alive, but he was in terrible pain and didn’t really have any facial features. But the worst is a wound from an AR-15 or AK-47 — high-muzzle velocity weapons, which impart a tremendous amount of kinetic energy into the body. Those are much more destructive. You’re looking at a wound that, externally, is two, three, four times bigger than any handgun wound. And that is reflective of the damage that happens on the inside. When a bullet from a high-muzzle velocity weapon hits the intestines, it’s like an explosion, whereas a low-muzzle velocity can be very similar to a knife going through the intestines; there’s bleeding, but it doesn’t destroy the whole area. A high-muzzle bullet, however, destroys whole areas of body. With a bone that’s been shot with a standard-issue caliber handgun, you’ll see a break, a hole in the bone, and maybe some displacement. But a high-muzzle weapon shatters that bone into hundreds of microscopic pieces, in a way that cannot be repaired. You need to essentially clean out the bone that has been struck and remove it from the body; it’s now a worthless tissue. You can’t believe that a bullet could do this amount of damage.
** David H. Newman, the director of clinical research in the department of emergency medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Spies, Mike (September 21, 2015). When a Bullet Enters a Body: Gun Violence as Seen by a Trauma Surgeon. The Trace. Retrieved on October 5, 2018.).

### 2016

* The Shooter Had a Powerful Rifle and High-Capacity Magazines The gunman was armed with an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle and a 9 millimeter handgun, Chief Mina said. AR-15s, which were first developed for the military and used extensively in the Vietnam War, are widely owned by assault-rifle enthusiasts. The rifle, which can rapidly fire multiple high-velocity rounds, has been used in a number of mass shootings, including those in Aurora, Colo.; Newtown, Conn.; and San Bernardino, Calif.
** Keller, Josh; Mykhyalyshyn, Iaryna; Pearce, Adam; Watkins, Derek (June 12, 2016). "Why the Orlando Shooting Was So Deadly". The New York Times.
* A half-century later, AR-15s and M-16s are made in varied forms by multiple manufacturers, and updated versions, including the M-4 carbine, remain the standard shoulder-fired weapon for most American service members and many allies. Civilian versions have many trade and model names, but are generally referred to as AR-15s, although this name is a rough description and does not indicate whether a particular specimen of the rifle is capable of both semiautomatic fire and automatic fire, or is semiautomatic only.
** Chivers, C. J. (June 12, 2016). "Orlando Gunman Used Assault Rifle With Military Roots, Police Say". The New York Times. Retrieved on October 20, 2018.
* There were a lot of guns that our shooter could have chosen from his arsenal and his mother’s arsenal. He chose the AR-15. He was aware of how many shots it could get out, how lethal it was, how it would serve his objective of killing as many people as possible in as short a time as possible...and the manufacturers need to be held responsible for that.
** Nicole Hockley, mother of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim Dylan Hockley, at a press conference in February, 2016 (Beckett, Lois (October 14, 2016). "Sandy Hook families cannot hold gun company liable in massacre, judge rules". The Guardian. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; Gorman, Michele (April 15, 2016). "The Sandy Hook Lawsuit: What It Means for Victims of Gun Violence". Newsweek. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; "Maker of rifle used in Sandy Hook shooting seeks dismissal of lawsuit". Chicago Tribune. February 22, 2016. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; Stuart, Tessa (June 13, 2016). "Everything You Need to Know About AR-15-Style Rifles". Rolling Stone. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; "AR-15 gun maker seeks Newtown victim lawsuit dismissal". Associated Press. CBS News. February 23, 2016. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ).
* Since the massacre in Orlando early Sunday morning, pro-gun pundits have come out in force to argue that the weapon used in the attack is not an assault rifle. The gun lobby prefers to call these weapons "modern sporting rifles", euphemistic ammo it can fire in an ongoing semantic debate. But make no mistake: What the Orlando attacker used was a weapon of war. It was designed to kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. Witness this harrowing audio captured by a bystander outside the Pulse nightclub in which Omar Mateen fires 24 shots in 9 seconds. According to a federal law enforcement official, the rifle Mateen used to murder and maim more than 100 people was a Sig Sauer MCX. Mateen legally purchased the weapon, similar to an AR-15, on June 4 in Port St. Lucie, Florida, near where he lived.
** Follman, Mark (June 13, 2016). "This Is the Assault Rifle Used by the Orlando Mass Shooter". Mother Jones. Retrieved on October 20, 2018.
* Our father, Eugene Stoner, designed the AR-15 and subsequent M-16 as a military weapon to give our soldiers an advantage over the AK-47. He died long before any mass shootings occurred. But, we do think he would have been horrified and sickened as anyone, if not more by these events.
** The family of Eugene Stoner, speaking under condition of individual anonymity to NBC News on June 16, 2016, after the June 12, 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting (Dokoupil, Tony (June 16, 2016). "Family of AR-15 Inventor Eugene Stoner: He Didn't Intend It for Civilians". NBC News. Retrieved on August 25, 2018. ; Frizell, Sam (June 16, 2016). "AR-15 Inventor's Family: This Was Meant to Be a Military Weapon". Time. Retrieved on September 23, 2018. ).
* What do James Holmes, Adam Lanza, and Omar Mateen have in common? Besides being the perpetrators of three of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, they all share a preference for the AR-15 assault rifle. The AR-15 assault rifle was used at the Aurora, Colo. shooting, the Newtown, Conn. shooting, and now the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla. that killed 50 and is officially the deadliest such massacre in U.S. history...While Colt alone makes the official AR-15, variants and knock-offs are made by a huge number of gun manufactures, including Bushmaster, Les Baer, Remington, Smith & Wesson (swhc, +0.00%), and Sturm & Ruger (rgr, -2.04%), just to name a few. TacticalRetailer claims that from 2000 to 2015 the AR manufacturing sector expanded from 29 AR makers to about 500, “a stunning 1,700% increase.”
** O’Dea, Meghan (June 13, 2016). "What Makes the AR-15 So Appealing to Mass Shooters?". Fortune. Retrieved on October 19, 2018.
* So why is the AR-15 so appealing to mass shooters? To answer that question, it’s best to look at why the AR-15 is so popular in general... Essentially, the AR-15 is a versatile civilian-grade firearm that boasts ease of use, sheer firepower, and a certain cultural and aesthetic cache... Relatively inexpensive, readily available, highly customizable, and easily modified (whether legally or into a fully automatic weapon), the reasons for the AR-15’s popularity are apparent.
** O’Dea, Meghan (June 13, 2016). "What Makes the AR-15 So Appealing to Mass Shooters?". Fortune. Retrieved on October 19, 2018.
* On July 20, 2012, a mass murderer killed 12 and wounded 58 others at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., using a Smith & Wesson M&P15. On Dec. 12, 2012, another mass murderer killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., using his mother's Bushmaster XM15-E2S. The letter and number suffixes belie a simple truth—the guts of both guns look just like an M-16 or, as it is known for civilian use, an AR-15. OK, the M-16 can fire in fully automatic mode but otherwise, the same. In Orlando just this month, it was a similar type of semiautomatic assault weapon, a Sig Sauer MCX, that helped claim 49 lives.
** Kingsbury, Alex (June 16, 2016). "Meet the must-have Bling for Your Gun". Boston Globe.
* One looks like a grenade went off in there. The other looks like a bad knife cut.
** Dr. Peter Rhee, American surgeon, medical professor, and military veteran, comparing gunshot wounds from AR-15 style rifles to handguns (Zhang, Sarah (June 17, 2016). "What an AR-15 can do to the Human Body". Wired. Retrieved on September 24, 2018. ; Cassidy, John (February 15, 2018). "America’s Failure to Protect Its Children from School Shootings Is a National Disgrace". The New Yorker. Retrieved on September 24, 2018. ; Erickson, Amanda (February 15, 2018). "The one number that shows America’s problem with school shootings is unique". The Washington Post. Retrieved on September 24, 2018. ).
* The gun barely moves. You can sit there boom boom boom and reel off shots as fast as you can move your finger.
** Dr. Ernest E. Moore, trauma surgeon, editor of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, on the recoil of an AR-15 style rifle (Zhang, Sarah (June 17, 2016). "What an AR-15 can do to the Human Body". Wired. Retrieved on September 24, 2018. ).
* These high-velocity bullets can damage flesh inches away from their path, either because they fragment or because they cause something called cavitation. When you trail your fingers through water, the water ripples and curls. When a high-velocity bullet pierces the body, human tissues ripples as well—but much more violently. The bullet from an AR-15 might miss the femoral artery in the leg, but cavitation may burst the artery anyway, causing death by blood loss. A swath of stretched and torn tissue around the wound may die. That’s why, says Rhee, a handgun wound might require only one surgery but an AR-15 bullet wound might require three to ten... Handguns kill plenty of people too, of course, and they’re responsible for the vast majority of America’s gun deaths. But a single bullet from a handgun is not likely to be as deadly as one from an AR-15.
** Zhang, Sarah (June 17, 2016). "What an AR-15 can do to the Human Body". Wired. Retrieved on September 24, 2018.
* The Orlando and San Bernardino mass shootings, especially when viewed alongside similar carnage in Paris, make clear that individuals inspired by terrorist groups have eagerly adopted the military-style semi-automatic rifle, capable of shooting multiple rounds of bullets quickly and accurately, as a tool to produce maximum fatalities, mayhem, and fear. We are almost certain to see more such attacks, and as the Orlando event illustrates, they are extremely difficult to prevent, even when a person has been under suspicion, in part because they can be carried out without significant advance coordination or planning.
** Cole, David (July 14, 2016). "The Terror of Our Guns". The New York Review of Books.
* The AR-15 is the model of gun used in several recent mass shootings in America, including the massacres at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June this year. It is not unusual that gun sales rise at election time in the US. The more dramatic surges usually come in the immediate aftermath of mass shootings, however, as buyers both feel greater concern about their own safety and fear a US government response to crack down sales. In the year that followed Newton, Sturm Ruger, Remington Outdoor, and Smith & Wesson - the three most important gun manufacturers in the US - saw a windfall of over $390 million in profits on record sales. Shares in publicly traded Sturm Ruger and Smith & Wesson jumped more than 70 percent in the same year.
** Usborne, David (November 2, 2016). "Fear of Hillary Clinton victory sends gun manufacturer sales and profits soaring". The Independent. Retrieved on November 4, 2018.
* And maybe as a result we learned that “assault rifle” should refer to a fully automatic gun that sprays many rounds with one trigger squeeze, while the semiautomatic variations (like that Sig Sauer) discharge one shot per trigger pull; or that this distinction separates guns designed for military use from those typically available to civilians; or that a term such as "AR-15-style" often refers more to a gun’s appearance than any precisely agreed-upon set of specific technical features.
** Rob Walker in The New Yorker in December, 2016 (Walker, Rob (December 30, 2016). "The Year in Nine Objects". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved on February 15, 2018. ).

### 2017

* For full disclosure, I own 12 guns and have always been an avid wapiti hunter. But I have also experienced the Columbine School and Aurora Theater shootings and I do not own an AR-15.An astounding fact is that gun homicide rates in the United States are 25 times higher than any other high-income country in the world. The objective of this Committee on Trauma survey was to identify areas of consensus to develop action plans.Although laudable, this process carries a risk of merely supporting the bandwagons already in motion. In that light, I would like to focus on the conspicuous area of disagreement, specifically, civilian access to assault rifles. These weapons are designed to permit the shooter to deliver sequentially, as fast as the trigger can be pulled, life-threatening moderate energy missiles, resulting in multiple deaths at short distance over a short time period.The debate is not about ammunition. These same bullets are used for small game hunting, but at a longer distance. The fundamental issue is the magazine capacity of rifles, housing 30 or more bullets, enabling rapid shooting. Mass shootings, defined as greater than or equal to five victims, are currently an epidemic in our country, reported as literally occurring every week. The volatile issue in controlling gun violence is eliminating assault rifles to reduce mass shootings and fundamentally distills into the interpretation of the Second Amendment "to keep and bear Arms." I do not believe a randomized, prospective trial is necessary to establish the fact that mass shootings are only feasible because irresponsible individuals have access to these weapons, designed by the military to accomplish this mission.
** Dr. Ernest E. Moore, trauma surgeon, editor of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery (American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma Injury Prevention and Control Committee (May 2017). "Survey of American College of Surgeons Committee on trauma members on firearm injury: Consensus and opportunities". Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery 82 (5): pp. 877-886. doi:10.1097/TA.0000000000001405. PMID 28240673. )
* No outer trauma or inner demon can justify the worst mass killing in northeast Pennsylvania — one of the deadliest sprees of violence in American history. Banks sits alone in his cell at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford for days at a time, occupied by the fantasies and delusions that have played in his psyche since before the Sept. 25, 1982, shooting spree that left 13 people dead in Wilkes Barre and Jenkins Township, including five of his own children.... Banks wore military-style fatigues and a T-shirt that read, "Kill ‘em all and let God sort 'em out," as he used an M-16 rifle and an AR-15 automatic rifle to end the lives of girlfriends Regina Clemens, 29, Dorothy Lyons, 29, Sharon Mazzillo, 24, and Susan Yuhas, 23; sons Kissmayu, 5, Boende, 4, and Forarode, 1; daughters Montanzima, 6, and Maritanya, 1; and four others: Lyons’ daughter, Nancy, 11; Mazzillo’s nephew, Scott, 7, and mother, Alice, 47; and Raymond Hall, 24, a guest at a party across the street from the Schoolhouse Lane crime scene.
** "Decades on death row: Now delusional, George Banks killed 13 people, including 5 of his children in 1982". The Patriot-News. Associated Press (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania). September 29, 2017. Retrieved on November 6, 2018.
* I’d also like to, I may get in trouble with other members of the committee, just say how insane it is that in the United States of America a civilian can go out and buy a semiautomatic assault rifle like an AR-15.
** Dean Winslow, American physician, professor of medicine at Stanford University, and retired United States Air Force colonel, on November 7, 2017 in his confirmation hearing before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services (O’Brien, Conner (November 7, 2017). "Pentagon health nominee: It's 'insane' civilians can purchase assault weapons". Politico. Retrieved on August 29, 2018. ; Cohen, Zachary (November 7, 2017). "Trump DoD nominee: 'Insane' that civilians can buy assault rifles". CNN. Retrieved on August 29, 2018. ; McLaughlin, Elizabeth (November 7, 2017). "Top Trump Pentagon nominee: It's 'insane' that civilians can buy semiautomatic assault rifles". ABC News. Retrieved on August 29, 2018. ; Fallows, James (November 12, 2017). "More on the Military and Civilian History of the AR-15". The Atlantic. Retrieved on August 29, 2018. ; Winslow, Dean (December 20, 2017). "I spoke my mind on guns. Then my Senate confirmation was put on hold". The Washington Post. Retrieved on August 29, 2018. ).
* Americans who know nothing else about firearms are all too familiar with the name AR-15. It’s the semi-automatic weapon that murderers have used in many of the most notorious and highest-casualty gun killings of recent years: Aurora, Colorado. Newtown, Connecticut. Orlando, Florida. San Bernardino, California. Now, with modified versions, in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Sutherland Springs, Texas.
** James Fallows (Fallows, James (November 7, 2017). "Why the AR-15 Is So Lethal". The Atlantic. Retrieved on September 2, 2018. ).
* A little bullet pays off so much in wound ballistics. That is what people who choose these weapons know.
** James Fallows (Fallows, James (November 7, 2017). "Why the AR-15 Is So Lethal". The Atlantic. Retrieved on September 2, 2018. ).
* The AR-15 was developed in the late 1950s as a civilian weapon by Eugene Stoner, a former Marine working for small California startup called ArmaLite (which is where the AR comes from). The gun, revolutionary for its light weight, easy care and adaptability with additional components, entered the mainstream in the mid-1960s, after Colt bought the patent and developed an automatic-fire version for troops in Vietnam, called the M16.
** Schuppe, Jon (December 27, 2017). "America's rifle: Why so many people love the AR-15". NBC News. Retrieved on November 6, 2018.
* Because an AR-15, or a variant, was reportedly used in several mass shootings — including Aurora, Colorado; Newtown, Connecticut; San Bernardino, California; Sutherland Springs, Texas; Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida, in which a total of 154 people were killed — this civilian sibling of a military assault rifle is an exceptionally polarizing product of modern American industry. The AR-15 and its semiautomatic cousins — they shoot one round for each pull of the trigger ─ incite repulsion among those who see them as excessive, grotesque and having no place on the civilian market. It is the focus of multiple attempts at prohibition, which in turn has prompted people to run out and buy more. Such “panic buying” drove sales of AR-15s to record levels during the presidency of Barack Obama and the 2016 presidential campaign.
** Schuppe, Jon (December 27, 2017). "America's rifle: Why so many people love the AR-15". NBC News. Retrieved on November 6, 2018.
* Production of AR-style guns has soared since the federal ban expired. In 2004, 107,000 were made. In 2015, the number was 1.2 million, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), an industry trade association.... Today, one of out of every five firearms purchased in this country is an AR-style rifle, according to a NSSF estimate. Americans now own an estimated 15 million AR-15s, gun groups say.
** Schuppe, Jon (December 27, 2017). "America's rifle: Why so many people love the AR-15". NBC News. Retrieved on November 6, 2018.
* The problem we face is gun violence. Gun violence is a uniquely American epidemic. Since 1968, 1.5 million people have been killed by guns in America, which is more than all of the wars in American history combined. Assault-style rifles are being used to slaughter people: Aurora: AR-15, Orlando: Sig Sauer MCX, Las Vegas: AR-15, Santa Monica Community College: AR-15, Sandy Hook: AR-15, Umpqua Community College: AR-15, San Bernardino: AR-15, Sutherland Springs: AR-15. We must change. I do not mean change the level of security at houses of worship, I mean change the way we view guns, violence, and terror. The ability of civilians to own guns designed to inflict maximum casualties is not worth 1.5 million dead people over 50 years.
** Laura Mayo, pastor, Covenant Church, Houston, Texas (Gun Violence Prevention Congregational Toolkit. Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America.)

### 2018

* All right. So here's the plan. I'm gonna go take Uber in the afternoon before 2:40. From there I'll go into the --onto school campus, walk up the stairs, unload my bags and get my AR and shoot people down at the main -- what is it? -- the main courtyard, wait, and people will die.
** Nikolas Cruz, February 8, 2018, in self-recorded cell phone video (Ovalle, David; Nehamas, Nicholas (May 30, 2018). "'You're all going to die.' Nikolas Cruz made cellphone videos plotting Parkland attack.". The Miami Herald. ; Gallagher, Dianne; Edwards, Meridith; Lynch, Jamiel; Almasy, Steve (May 30, 2018). "Parkland shooter described plans on cellphone video". CNN. ; Robles, Frances (May 31, 2018). "Taunting Words of Teenager: 'You'll All Know Who I Am. You're All Going to Die.'". The New York Times. )
* Today is the day. The day that it all begins. The day of my massacre shall begin. All the kids in school will run and fear and hide. From the wrath of my power they will know who I am....With the power of my AR-15 you will all know who I am.
** Nikolas Cruz, February 11, 2018, in self-recorded cell phone video (Ovalle, David; Nehamas, Nicholas (May 30, 2018). "'You're all going to die.' Nikolas Cruz made cellphone videos plotting Parkland attack.". The Miami Herald. ; Robles, Frances (May 31, 2018). "Taunting Words of Teenager: 'You'll All Know Who I Am. You're All Going to Die.'". The New York Times. )
* Hello. My name is Nick and I'm gonna be the next school shooter of 2018. My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15 and a couple tracer rounds. I think I can do -- get done. Location is Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida. It's gonna be a big event. And when you see me on the news, you'll all know who I am (laughing). You're all going to die. Pew, pew-pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. Ah, yeah. Can't wait.
** Nikolas Cruz, February 11, 2018, in self-recorded cell phone video (Ovalle, David; Nehamas, Nicholas (May 30, 2018). "'You're all going to die.' Nikolas Cruz made cellphone videos plotting Parkland attack.". The Miami Herald. ; Gallagher, Dianne; Edwards, Meridith; Lynch, Jamiel; Almasy, Steve (May 30, 2018). "Parkland shooter described plans on cellphone video". CNN. ; Robles, Frances (May 31, 2018). "Taunting Words of Teenager: 'You'll All Know Who I Am. You're All Going to Die.'". The New York Times. )
* All of these military-style semiautomatic weapons have something else in common. They have been heavily marketed as home-defense and marksmanship weapons, and their sales have been a major driver of profits for gun manufacturers over the past two decades.
** Oppel Jr., Richard A. (15 February 2018), "In Florida, an AR-15 Is Easier to Buy Than a Handgun", The New York Times, retrieved on November 6, 2018
* The AR-15, the civilian version of the military assault rifle (M16 or M4), has become the most commonly used rifle in US mass shootings; the recent shootings in Parkland and Las Vegas, for instance, testify to the effectiveness of this weapon’s design. It was made for the military, to allow members of the armed forces to better dispatch multiple enemies in short order; in the hands of civilians, it not only clearly serves the same purpose for some individuals, but it’s unclear what other purpose it could serve, given how and why it was made. ...a typical 9mm handgun wound to the liver will produce a pathway of tissue destruction in the order of 1-2 inches. In comparison, an AR-15 round to the liver will literally pulverize it, much like dropping a watermelon onto concrete results in the destruction of the watermelon. Wounds like this, as one sees in school shootings like Sandy Hook and Parkland where AR-15s were used, have high fatality rates... The efficiency of the AR-15 is further compounded by large capacity ammunition magazines that permit feeding 30 or more bullets into the rifle without reloading. Mass shootings with high fatalities are fundamentally the result of the combination of a deranged individual who wants to end the lives of a large number of random humans and his or her ability to access an assault rifle.
** Dr. Ernest E. Moore, trauma surgeon, editor of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery (Moore, Ernest E. (February 15, 2018). "The Parkland shooter's AR-15 was designed to kill as efficiently as possible". NBC News. Retrieved on August 25, 2018. ).
* I have hunted all my life...but an AR-15 is not for hunting. It’s for killing.
** Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, after the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, on February 15, 2018 on the floor of the United States Senate (Fisher, Marc (February 15, 2018). "The AR-15: ‘America’s rifle’ or illegitimate killing machine?". The Washington Post. Retrieved on August 22, 2018. ; Jansen, Bart (February 15, 2018). "Florida shooting suspect bought gun legally, authorities say". USA Today. Retrieved on August 22, 2018. ; "Florida Senators on Parkland School Shooting". C-SPAN. February 15, 2018. Retrieved on August 22, 2018. ; "FL senator: 'AR-15 is not for hunting, it’s for killing'". BBC. February 15, 2018. Retrieved on August 22, 2018. ) and in an interview on Fox News' Fox & Friends (Breuninger, Kevin (February 15, 2018). "AR-15s are not the problem, manufacturers say after rifle-wielding teenage gunman kills 17 people at Florida school". CNBC. Retrieved on August 22, 2018. ) and the next day in an appearance in Parkland ("VERBATIM: 'An AR-15 is not for hunting, it's for killing'". Reuters. February 16, 2018. Retrieved on August 22, 2018. ; "'An AR-15 Is for Killing': Sen. Nelson Hopes FL Shooting Is the 'Turning Point' on Gun Control". Fox News. February 16, 2018. Retrieved on August 22, 2018. ).
* The AR-15, the military-style rifle that a gunman used to kill 17 people at a South Florida high school Wednesday, is at once a ferociously powerful weapon, a symbol of freedom and individualism, and an object of despairing worry about the future of democracy. It is, depending on which political and social camp you belong to, “America’s rifle,” a way to “Control Your Destiny” or a killing machine that has no legitimate place in civilian life.
** Marc Fisher, senior editor of the The Washington Post (Fisher, Marc (February 15, 2018). "The AR-15: ‘America’s rifle’ or illegitimate killing machine?". The Washington Post. Retrieved on November 6, 2018. ).
* On the civilian market, the AR-15 didn’t sell terribly well for years, in part because of its connection with the Vietnam conflict, which was no one’s idea of a model of American greatness. Many gun enthusiasts didn’t like the AR-15 because it was so light; some dismissed it as feeling like a toy. But the AR-15 found new life in 2004 when President George W. Bush allowed the ban on assault weapons that had been enacted under President Bill Clinton in 1994 to die. And in 2005, Bush signed into law a measure protecting arms makers and dealers from liability for crimes committed with their products. The NRA called it “the most significant piece of pro-gun legislation in twenty years.” AR-15s flew off the shelves. Sales spiked again during the Obama administration, when the country suffered a flurry of mass shootings, which in turn led to calls by Democrats to reinstate the ban on assault weapons. Persistent campaigns by the NRA and many Republican supporters of gun rights spread the idea that President Barack Obama intended to ban and confiscate Americans’ firearms, leading to a massive surge in sales. Obama never launched any such initiative.
** Marc Fisher, senior editor of the The Washington Post (Fisher, Marc (February 15, 2018). "The AR-15: ‘America’s rifle’ or illegitimate killing machine?". The Washington Post. Retrieved on November 6, 2018. ).
* They’re accurate and they can basically shoot as quickly as you can pull the trigger. Along those lines, they’re very customizable — most average people can figure out how to install accessories like forward trigger grips that let you hold the gun at waist height and spray bullets while stabilizing the gun, laser sights, and you can add high-capacity magazines.
** Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (Cummings, William; Jansen, Bart (February 15, 2017). "Why the AR-15 keeps appearing at America's deadliest mass shootings". USA Today. Retrieved on September 26, 2018. ; Truesdell, Jeff (February 15, 2018). "The Controversy Surrounding the AR-15 Rifle Used In Florida Mass Shooting". People. Retrieved on September 26, 2018. ; Perez, Maria (February 15, 2018). "Florida Shooting Suspect Nikolas Cruz Bought AR-15 Rifle a Year Ago". Newsweek. Retrieved on September 26, 2018. ).
* The ability to add a high-capacity magazine to the rifles is certainly one factor that makes them attractive to people looking to commit mass murder. A 30-round magazine is fairly standard with MSRs (although some states cap the capacity to 10 or 15 rounds), but "drums" holding as many as 100 rounds are also available.
** Cummings, William; Jansen, Bart (February 15, 2017). "Why the AR-15 keeps appearing at America's deadliest mass shootings". USA Today. Retrieved on September 26, 2018.
* Even though it’s illegal for the CDC to study gun violence and how to prevent it, there are still some data. One fact is that the AR-15 has emerged as a gun of choice for mass shootings—used in Parkland this week as well as Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, Orlando, and many other places now synonymous with tragedy. Meanwhile, in Kansas, a Republican congressional candidate is giving away an AR-15 as part of his campaign. Unlike pornography, the AR-15 was not a product designed for pleasure or fantasy, but for maximizing harm, a triumph of “wound ballistics.”
** James Hamblin, M. D. (Hamblin, James (February 15, 2018). "If Porn Could Be Banned, Why Not AR-15s?". The Atlantic. Retrieved on October 25, 2018. ).
* Following news reports that the AR-15 style rifle used in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was a Smith & Wesson M&P15 assault rifle, the Violence Policy Center (VPC) today released Understanding the Smith & Wesson M&P15 Semiautomatic Assault Rifle. According to the VPC backgrounder, “The Smith & Wesson M&P15 assault rifle demonstrates the clear and present danger of a gun designed for war and ruthlessly marketed for profit to civilians.” The same model assault rifle was also used in an attack that left 12 dead at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in 2012 and in a mass shooting at a community center in San Bernardino, California in 2015 that left 14 dead.
** Backgrounder on Smith & Wesson M&P15 Assault Rifle Used in Mass Shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Violence Policy Center (February 16, 2018). Retrieved on November 12, 2018.; "About the Smith & Wesson M&P15 rifle used in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School". The Wisconsin Gazette. February 17, 2018. Retrieved on November 12, 2018.
* Stocks were up Thursday for American Outdoor Brands, the company that makes the AR-15 rifle used in the Florida school shooting that claimed 17 lives. The company’s shares closed up 1.49%, netting the company an additional $8.8 million on the day. The Associated Press reported that accused gunman Nikolas Cruz used a Smith & Wesson M&P15 rifle – a variant of the AR-15 – during his allegedly shooting spree at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday. Smith & Wesson, which was founded in 1852, is a Springfield, Mass.-based holding of American Outdoor Brands.... Shares of American Outdoor Brands closed 5.6% higher on Wednesday, the day of the shooting. It’s not uncommon for gun maker shares to rise following a mass shooting as people are likely to stock up fearing potential gun control measures. This is the third time an M&P15 has been used in a mass shooting in the United States. James E. Holmes, who was convicted of killing 12 and wounding 70 in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting, used a Smith & Wesson M&P15 rifle. An illegally modified Smith & Wesson M&P15 Sport rifle was recovered by law enforcement officials after the 2015 San Bernardino shooting, where 14 people were killed.
** Gray, Sarah (February 16, 2018). "Stocks Rise for Maker of AR-15 Rifle Used in the Florida School Shooting". Time. Retrieved on November 12, 2018.
* The problem is not owning an AR-15, it’s the person who owns it.
** Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, on NBC News' Meet the Press, February 18, 2018 ("Meet the Press - February 18, 2018". Meet the Press. NBC News. February 18, 2018. Retrieved on September 1, 2018. ; Fox, Lauren (February 21, 2018). "Congress wonders if this time will be different for gun control". CNN. Retrieved on August 22, 2018. ; Schallhorn, Kaitlyn (February 19, 2018). "Florida shooting sparks reactions from Republican senators on gun control". Fox News. Retrieved on August 22, 2018. ).
* Certainly nobody under 21 should have an AR-15.
** Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas speaking to reporters at the state capital in Topeka, Kansas on February 22, 2018 (O'Keefe, Ed (February 22, 2018). "NRA-backed Sen. Pat Roberts: 'Nobody under 21 should have an AR-15'". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved on August 23, 2018. ; Gay Stolberg, Sheryl; Martin, Jonathan; Kaplan, Thomas (February 25, 2018). "Is This the Moment for Gun Control? A Gridlocked Congress Is Under Pressure". The New York Times. Retrieved on August 23, 2018. ; Tatum, Sophie (February 22, 2018). "Kansas Republican backs raising age to buy semiautomatic rifles". CNN. Retrieved on August 23, 2018. ; "The Latest: Ban Proposed on Young Buying Assault Rifles". U.S. News & World Report. Associated Press. February 23, 2018. Retrieved on August 23, 2018. ).
* If all of a sudden, you couldn't buy an AR-15, what would you lose? Would you feel as though your Second Amendment rights would be eroded because you couldn't buy a God-darn AR-15?
** Governor John Kasich of Ohio on CNN's State of the Union on February 18, 2018 ("Transcript". State of the Union. CNN. February 18, 2018. Retrieved on August 24, 2018. ; Koenig, Kailani (February 18, 2018). "GOP Sen. Lankford has 'no issue' with stronger gun background checks". Meet the Press. NBC News. Retrieved on August 22, 2018. ; Turkewitz, Julie; Hartocollis, Anemona (February 20, 2018). "Highlights: Students Call for Action Across Nation; Florida Lawmakers Fail to Take Up Assault Rifle Bill". The New York Times. Retrieved on August 24, 2018. ).
* The AR-15 assault rifle was engineered to create what one of its designers called "maximum wound effect." Its tiny bullets – needle-nosed and weighing less than four grams – travel nearly three times the speed of sound. As the bullet strikes the body, the payload of kinetic energy rips open a cavity inside the flesh – essentially inert space – which collapses back on itself, destroying inelastic tissue, including nerves, blood vessels and vital organs.
** Dickinson, Tim (February 22, 2018). "All-American Killer: How the AR-15 Became Mass Shooters’ Weapon of Choice". Rolling Stone. Retrieved on September 4, 2018.
* It’s a perfect killing machine...A handgun [wound] is simply a stabbing with a bullet. It goes in like a nail...[With the high-velocity rounds of the AR-15] it's as if you shot somebody with a Coke can.
** Dr. Peter Rhee, American surgeon, medical professor, and military veteran (Dickinson, Tim (February 22, 2018). "All-American Killer: How the AR-15 Became Mass Shooters’ Weapon of Choice". Rolling Stone. Retrieved on September 4, 2018. ).
* A typical AR-15 bullet leaves the barrel traveling almost three times faster than—and imparting more than three times the energy of—a typical 9mm bullet from a handgun...The bullet from an AR-15 passes through the body like a cigarette boat traveling at maximum speed through a tiny canal. The tissue next to the bullet is elastic—moving away from the bullet like waves of water displaced by the boat—and then returns and settles back. This process is called cavitation; it leaves the displaced tissue damaged or killed. The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the size of an orange... If a victim takes a direct hit to the liver from an AR-15, the damage is far graver than that of a simple handgun-shot injury. Handgun injuries to the liver are generally survivable unless the bullet hits the main blood supply to the liver. An AR-15 bullet wound to the middle of the liver would cause so much bleeding that the patient would likely never make it to the trauma center to receive our care... As a radiologist, I have now seen high-velocity AR-15 gunshot wounds firsthand, an experience that most radiologists in our country will never have. I pray that these are the last such wounds I have to see, and that AR-15-style weapons and high-capacity magazines are banned for use by civilians in the United States, once and for all.
** Dr. Heather Sher, who treated victims of the 2017 Fort Lauderdale airport shooting and the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting (Sher, Heather (February 22, 2018). "What I Saw Treating the Victims From Parkland Should Change the Debate on Guns". The Atlantic. Retrieved on August 25, 2018. ; Pasha-Robinson, Lucy (February 23, 2018). "Florida shooting: Doctor describes 'sledgehammer' injuries inflicted by AR-15". The Independent. Retrieved on August 26, 2018. ; LeTourneau, Nancy (February 22, 2018). "It’s Not Just the Magazine Capacity That Makes the AR-15 So Deadly". Washington Monthly. Retrieved on September 26, 2018. ; Vomiero, Jessica (February 23, 2018). "The difference between an AR-15 and handgun can be seen in the bullet wounds". Global News. Retrieved on September 26, 2018. ).
* Most nights in Afghanistan, I wielded an M4 carbine...My rifle was very similar to the AR-15-style semiautomatic weapon used to kill students, teachers and a coach I knew at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where I once lived...I cannot support the primary weapon I used to defend our people being used to kill children I swore to defend...The AR-15 is an excellent platform for recreational shooters to learn to be outstanding marksmen. Unfortunately, it is also an excellent platform for those who wish to kill the innocent.
** Representative Brian Mast of Florida, a former resident of Parkland, Florida and an Army veteran, in an op ed in The New York Times on February 23, 2018 (Mast, Brian (February 23, 2018). "I Appreciate Assault Weapons. And I Support a Ban". The New York Times. Retrieved on July 18, 2018. ; Leary, Alex (February 24, 2018). "Republican, veteran and gun rights supporter Brian Mast says assault weapons should be banned". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved on July 18, 2018. ; Gay Stolberg, Sheryl; Martin, Jonathan; Kaplan, Thomas (February 25, 2018). "Is This the Moment for Gun Control? A Gridlocked Congress Is Under Pressure". The New York Times. Retrieved on August 23, 2018. ; Chivers, C. J.; Buchanan, Larry; Lu, Denise; Yourish, Karen (February 28, 2018). "With AR-15s, Mass Shooters Attack With the Rifle Firepower Typically Used by Infantry Troops". The New York Times. Retrieved on July 18, 2018. ).
* Sanders: I have a D minus voting record, from the NRA. I lost an election probably, for congress here in Vermont back in 1988, because I believe we should not be selling or distributing assault weapons in this country. I am on record and have been for a very long time in saying we have got to significantly tighten up the background checks. We have to end the absurdity of the gun show loophole. 40 percent of the guns in this country are sold without any background checks. We have to deal with the straw man provision which allows people to legally buy guns and then distribute. We’ve got to take on the NRA. And that is my view. And I am, will do everything I can to—the tragedy that we saw in Parkland is unspeakable. And all over this country, parents are scared to death of what might happen when they send their kids to school. This problem is not going to be easily solved. Nobody has a magic solution, alright, but we’ve got to do everything we can do protect the children— Todd: What does that mean? You say everything we can. Does that mean raising the age when you can purchase an AR-15? Does that mean limiting the purchase of AR-15s? Sanders: Yes! Yeah, look. Chuck, what I just told you is that for 30 years, I believe that we should not be selling assault weapons in this country. These weapons are not for hunting, they are for killing human beings. These are military weapons. I do not know why we have five million of them running around the United States of America, so of course we have to do that. Of course we have to make it harder for people to purchase weapons. We have people now who are on terrorist watch lists who can purchase a weapon. Does this make any sense to anybody. Bottom line here, Republicans are going to have to say that it’s more important to protect the children of this country than to antagonize the NRA. Are they prepared to do that, I surely hope they are.
** Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on February 18, 2018 interviewed by Chuck Todd of NBC News on Meet the Press ("Meet the Press -February 18, 2018". Meet the Press. NBC News. February 18, 2018. Retrieved on September 1, 2018. ).
* The AR-15, the semiautomatic rifle used at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, uses bullets that can cause softball-sized exit wounds, leaving behind a significantly larger trail of mangled tissue compared to handgun bullets. For trauma surgeons, the injuries are harder to repair. For victims, the chances of survival are lower...The AR-15 and similar rifles fire bullets at a speed of about 2,800 to 3,000 feet per second, compared to a 9 millimeter handgun, which fires bullets at a speed of between 700 and 1,100 feet per second, according to Dr. David Shatz, a trauma surgeon at the University of California, Davis...Shatz said bullets cause permanent cavities, where tissue is destroyed, and temporary cavities, which are areas around the permanent cavity that open up for a fraction of a second because of the “sonic force” of a bullet. Cavities caused by bullets like the .223 caliber bullet typically fired by the AR-15 are much larger than the cavities caused by handgun bullets.
** Daugherty, Alex (February 24, 2018). "Mangled tissue and softball-sized exit wounds: Why AR-15 injuries are so devastating". Miami Herald. Retrieved on March 26, 2018.
* A quick Google search shows that P. James Debney is the CEO and president of American Outdoor Brands, which until last year was named Smith & Wesson. By whatever name, the company Debney heads manufactured the AR-15 assault rifle that Cruz used to kill 14 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and three staff members.... Debney kept selling assault rifles as if he were just selling more plastic after a madman with a Smith & Wesson assault rifle murdered 12 people in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater....The company’s profits came to include the sale of the M&P15 that was used in the 2015 terror attack in San Bernardino. Fifteen were murdered.... Smith & Wesson did experience a modest bump after a madman used one of its M&P15s to murder 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High on Valentine’s Day.
** Daly, Michael (February 24, 2018). "He Made the Gun That Slaughtered Parkland’s Kids". The Daily Beast. Retrieved on November 12, 2018.
* We at Dick's Sporting Goods are deeply disturbed and saddened by the tragic events in Parkland. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the victims and their loved ones. But thoughts and prayers are not enough...We believe it's time to do something about it. Beginning today, Dick's Sporting Goods is committed to the following: We will no longer sell assault-style rifles, also referred to as modern sporting rifles. We had already removed them from all Dick's stores after the Sandy Hook massacre, but we will now remove them from sale at all 35 Field & Stream stores. We will no longer sell firearms to anyone under 21 years of age. We will no longer sell high capacity magazines. We never have and never will sell bump stocks that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire more rapidly. At the same time, we implore our elected officials to enact common sense gun reform and pass the following regulations: Ban assault-style firearms Raise the minimum age to purchase firearms to 21 Ban high capacity magazines and bump stocks Require universal background checks that include relevant mental health information and previous interactions with the law Ensure a complete universal database of those banned from buying firearms Close the private sale and gun show loophole that waives the necessity of background checks
** Edward W. Stack, chairman and chief executive officer of Dick's Sporting Goods ("Here's what Dick's Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack wrote about his company's actions". USA Today. Associated Press. February 28, 2018. Retrieved on September 4, 2018. ; Frankel, Todd C.; Bhattarai, Abha; Siegel, Rachel (February 28, 2018). "Dick’s Sporting Goods joins chorus for gun control, stops selling assault-style rifles". The Washington Post. Retrieved on September 4, 2018. ; Dick's Sporting Goods (February 28, 2018). Media Statements. Press release.; Creswell, Julie; Corkery, Michael (February 28, 2018). "Walmart and Dick’s Raise Minimum Age for Gun Buyers to 21". The New York Times. Retrieved on September 4, 2018. ; Kimble, Lindsay; Petit, Stephanie (February 28, 2018). "Dick's Sporting Goods Will Stop Selling Assault-Style Rifles: 'Thoughts and Prayers Are Not Enough'". People. Retrieved on September 4, 2018. ).
* The main functional difference between the military’s M16 and M4 rifles and a civilian AR-15 is the "burst" mode on many military models, which allow three rounds to be fired with one trigger pull. Some military versions of the rifles have a full automatic feature, which fires until the trigger is released or a magazine is empty of ammunition. But in actual American combat these technical differences are less significant than they seem. For decades the American military has trained its conventional troops to fire their M4s and M16s in the semiautomatic mode — one bullet per trigger pull — instead of on “burst” or automatic in almost all shooting situations. The weapons are more accurate this way, and thus more lethal. The National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups highlight the fully automatic feature in military M4s and M16s. But the American military, after a long experience with fully automatic M16s reaching back to Vietnam, decided by the 1980s to issue M16s, and later M4s, to most conventional troops without the fully automatic function, and to train them to fire in a more controlled fashion. What all of this means is that the Parkland gunman, in practical terms, had the same rifle firepower as an American grunt using a standard infantry rifle in the standard way... A New York Times analysis of a video from a Florida classroom estimates that during his crime the gunman fired his AR-15 as quickly as one-and-a-half rounds per second. The military trains soldiers to fire at a sustained rate of 12 to 15 rounds per minute, or a round every four or five seconds.
** Chivers, C. J.; Buchanan, Larry; Lu, Denise; Yourish, Karen (February 28, 2018). "With AR-15s, Mass Shooters Attack With the Rifle Firepower Typically Used by Infantry Troops". The New York Times. Retrieved on September 5, 2018.
* Light, precise and with little recoil, the Colt Armalite Rifle-15 Sporter hit the market in the early 1960s as the first civilian version of the military’s M16 rifle. What set it apart was, much like its military counterpart, the inventor Eugene Stoner’s patented gas operating system, which allowed for rapid fire and reloading. The weapon could easily handle a 20-round magazine, was easy to disassemble and was marketed, in one of Colt’s early advertisements, to hunters, campers and collectors. Billed as “America’s rifle” by the National Rifle Association, the AR-15 is less a specific weapon than a family of them. When Mr. Stoner’s rights to the gas system expired in 1977, it opened the way for dozens of weapons manufacturers to produce their own models, using the same technology. The term AR-15 has become a catchall that includes a variety of weapons that look and operate similarly, including the Remington Bushmaster, the Smith & Wesson M&P15 and the Springfield Armory Saint. Over the ensuing decades, as the American military modified the M16’s exterior to allow for accessories such as sights, grips and flashlights, the civilian market followed. Today, gun enthusiasts consider the AR-15 the Erector Set of firearms.
** Watkins, Ali; Ismay, John; Gibbons-Neff, Thomas (March 3, 2018). "Once Banned, Now Loved and Loathed: How the AR-15 Became ‘America’s Rifle’". The New York Times. Retrieved on June 10, 2018.
* Indeed, the AR-15 is also inextricably linked to tragedy. Mass shootings are central to the gun’s narrative, and its popularity.... It is unclear when and how the rifle worked its way into the United States’ lexicon of violent crimes. In 1982, George E. Banks shot to death 13 people with the weapon, and in 1997, an AR-15, among other semiautomatic military-style rifles, was used in the North Hollywood shootout, a daytime robbery in California that devolved into a nearly hourlong firefight and was televised live across the country. During the gun battle, police officers were forced to run to a local gun store and take rifles to try to contend with the robbers’ firepower and body armor. Afterward, police departments around the country started making AR-15s standard issue for officers.
** Watkins, Ali; Ismay, John; Gibbons-Neff, Thomas (March 3, 2018). "Once Banned, Now Loved and Loathed: How the AR-15 Became ‘America’s Rifle’". The New York Times. Retrieved on June 10, 2018.
* The tissue destruction is almost unimaginable. Bones are exploded, soft tissue is absolutely destroyed. The injuries to the chest or abdomen — it’s like a bomb went off...Bystanders are traumatized just seeing the victims. It’s awful, terrible. It’s just a ghastly thing to see.
** Dr. Jeremy Cannon, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Kolata, Gina; Chivers, C. J. (March 4, 2018). "Wounds From Military-Style Rifles? ‘A Ghastly Thing to See’". The New York Times. Retrieved on September 25, 2018. ).
* You will see multiple organs shattered. The exit wounds can be a foot wide. I’ve seen people with entire quadrants of their abdomens destroyed.
** Dr. Martin Schreiber, Oregon Health & Science University (Kolata, Gina; Chivers, C. J. (March 4, 2018). "Wounds From Military-Style Rifles? ‘A Ghastly Thing to See’". The New York Times. Retrieved on September 25, 2018. ).
* You will typically see a small penetrating wound. Then you roll the patient over and you see a huge exit wound...Then the bullet starts tumbling, causing more and more destruction...If they are shot in the torso, there often is not a whole lot we can do...These weapons are meant to kill people.
** Dr. Jeffrey Kerby, University of Alabama at Birmingham (Kolata, Gina; Chivers, C. J. (March 4, 2018). "Wounds From Military-Style Rifles? ‘A Ghastly Thing to See’". The New York Times. Retrieved on September 25, 2018. ).
* Many factors determine the severity of a wound, including a bullet’s mass, velocity and composition, and where it strikes. The AR-15, like the M4 and M16 rifles issued to American soldiers, shoots lightweight, high-speed bullets that can cause grievous bone and soft tissue wounds, in part by turning sideways, or “yawing,” when they hit a person. Surgeons say the weapons produce the same sort of horrific injuries seen on battlefields. Civilian owners of military-style weapons can also buy soft-nosed or hollow-point ammunition, often used for hunting, that lacks a full metal jacket and can expand and fragment on impact. Such bullets, which can cause wider wound channels, are proscribed in most military use.
** Kolata, Gina; Chivers, C. J. (March 4, 2018). "Wounds From Military-Style Rifles? ‘A Ghastly Thing to See’". The New York Times. Retrieved on September 25, 2018.
* Six minutes and 20 seconds with an AR-15, and my friend Carmen would never complain to me about piano practice. Aaron Feis would never call Kyra "miss sunshine," Alex Schachter would never walk into school with his brother Ryan, Scott Beigel would never joke around with Cameron at camp, Helena Ramsay would never hang around after school with Max, Gina Montalto would never wave to her friend Liam at lunch, Joaquin Oliver would never play basketball with Sam or Dylan. Alaina Petty would never, Cara Loughren would never, Chris Hixon would never, Luke Hoyer would never, Martin Duque Anguiano would never, Peter Wang would never, Alyssa Alhadeff would never, Jamie Guttenberg would never, Jamie Pollack would never. [Silence] Since the time that I came out here, it has been six minutes and 20 seconds. The shooter has ceased shooting, and will soon abandon his rifle, blend in with the students as they escape, and walk free for an hour before arrest. Fight for your lives before it's someone else's job.
** Emma González, Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor, at March for Our Lives in Washington D. C. on March 24, 2018 (Lucero II, Louis (March 24, 2018). "What Emma González Said Without Words at the March for Our Lives Rally". The New York Times. Retrieved on September 23, 2018. ; Reilly, Katie (March 24, 2018). "Emma González Kept America in Stunned Silence to Show How Quickly 17 People Died at Parkland". Time. Retrieved on September 23, 2018. ; Andone, Dakin (March 25, 2018). "Emma Gonzalez stood on stage for 6 minutes - the length of the Parkland gunman's shooting spree". CNN. Retrieved on September 23, 2018. ; Epstein, Kayla; Amenabar, Teddy (March 24, 2018). "The 6 most memorable speeches at the March for Our Lives in D.C.". The Washington Post. Retrieved on September 23, 2018. ).
* The Smith & Wesson M&P15 assault rifle demonstrates the clear and present danger of a gun designed for war and ruthlessly marketed for profit to civilians. In early 2006, Smith & Wesson announced that it had begun shipping the first of its M&P15 rifles. The M&P (Military & Police) “tactical rifle” was the first long gun produced by a company that had been long known as a handgun manufacturer. According to Shooting Industry, the new rifle was “specifically engineered to meet the needs of global military and police personnel, as well as sporting shooters.” The handgun company’s turn to assault rifles was a stark example of the gun industry’s relentless militarization of the civilian market. By 2006, military-style semiautomatic assault rifles had become one of the mainstays of the civilian gun market. Smith & Wesson did not make rifles. But it had successfully marketed a line of M&P semiautomatic handguns to military, police, and civilian customers. Its executives decided to introduce their own line of Military & Police assault rifles. Based on the AR-15/M-16 design, these “tactical rifles” would be heavily pitched to civilians.
** Understanding the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 Semiautomatic Assault Rifle. Violence Policy Center (February 2018). Retrieved on October 5, 2018.
* Going up against the country’s largest gun lobby organization was obviously something that needed to be done, but it means that the people we’re arguing against are the ones with the guns. I am personally deathly afraid of them, and I know, from traveling the country during the summer for the Road to Change tour, that many of the people who disagree with us mean it when they say that they only want to talk if we’re standing on the other end of their AR-15s.
** Emma González (González, Emma (October 5, 2018). "A Young Activist’s Advice: Vote, Shave Your Head and Cry Whenever You Need To". The New York Times. Retrieved on October 5, 2018. )
* Our nation mourns once again a horrific loss of life that should be unthinkable, yet is becoming routine. Assault weapons, like the AR-15 style weapon used in yesterday’s attack, are military bred firearms designed for a specific purpose: to kill as many people as possible in as short an amount of time as available. Mass shooters utilize guns like the AR-15 because of their specific anti-personnel design characteristics. We cannot talk about effective solutions to stopping these types of attacks without addressing the tools that make them possible. Until assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines are banned, these attacks will continue to threaten our public life and define our nation.
** Josh Sugarmann, Executive Director, Violence Policy Center (Sugarmann, Josh (February 15, 2018). Violence Policy Center Statement on Mass Shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Violence Policy Center. Retrieved on October 5, 2018.)
* In the wake of declining household gun ownership, it is no secret that the gun industry has focused on semiautomatic military-style assault weapons, most notably AR-15-type rifles, in its marketing and sales efforts. The target markets are two-fold: older males who already own firearms and can be enticed into purchasing one — or one more — of these battlefield-derived weapons; young males, who although they lack interest in the traditional shooting sports such as hunting, are intrigued by what one gun industry trade magazine calls the “tactical coolness factor.”
** The Militarized Marketing of Bushmaster Assault Rifles. Violence Policy Center (April 2018). Retrieved on October 19, 2018.
* Beginning Thursday, a group of students will march westward a quarter of the way across Massachusetts in the latest act of a national, youth-led campaign to save lives and change the conversation about gun violence.... The activists have two main goals. The first is to get Smith & Wesson to agree to stop manufacturing military-style weapons like the M&P 15, an AR-15-style rifle that has been used in a number of recent high-profile shootings, including in Parkland, Florida, in February, in San Bernardino, California, in 2015, and in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012. The second is for Smith & Wesson to donate $5 million to study gun violence and other crimes involving the company’s firearms.
** Wing, Nick (August 23, 2018). "Students March On Smith & Wesson To Demand Accountability On Gun Violence". HuffPost. Retrieved on November 12, 2018.
* ... we are all seeking solutions to the epidemic of gun violence in our country....The majority of guns used in crimes in major U.S. cities are AOBC guns. AOBC’s AR-15 style rifle was used in mass shootings in Parkland, Florida, San Bernardino, California and Aurora, Colorado. These are only a few of the most recent and highest profile violent incidents involving AOBC products that present grave financial and reputational risks. Each event brings new threats of lawsuits, boycotts, divestment and demonstrations - and along with them, a wave of damaging news stories about gun companies and their inability to make their products safer for civilians, and most critically, to help prevent their misuse by children.
** Sister Judy Byron, Adrian Dominican Sisters, director of the Northwest Coalition for Responsible Investments, addressing the American Outdoor Brands Corporation annual shareholders meeting, September 25, 2018 (Byron, Judy (September 25, 2018). Judy Byron’s Remarks: AOBC AGM. Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.)
* Parkland, Florida. Las Vegas, Nevada. Sutherland Springs, Texas. Now, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Recent deadly mass shootings in these US cities have at least one thing in common: the AR-15.... This weapon has become increasingly popular in the US, especially since the 1994 federal weapons ban expired in 2004, and has been used in many other mass shootings around the country. Not just the three listed above. To understand how and why this has happened, we put together a historical overview of the weapon and spoke with David Chipman, a senior policy analyst at Giffords and former special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.... Chipman said that he believes AR-15s have been so frequently used in mass shootings for two reasons: popularity and lethality. "It's a two-fold thing: the AR-15 is like the 4-door sedan of assault rifles," Chipman said. "It was America's weapon ... there's an Americana aspect." But so many mass shootings become mass shootings "because the AR-15 was used," he said, adding that the damage the weapon does to the human body pales in comparison to a handgun. "I've talked to ER physicians," Chipman said. "Rifle rounds are so devastating to the human body."
** Brown, Daniel (October 27, 2018). "The Pittsburgh synagogue shooter was reportedly armed with an AR-15 — here's how it became the weapon of choice for America's mass shooters". Business Insider. Retrieved on October 28, 2018.
* The man accused of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Robert Bowers, legally purchased the guns he used to kill 11 people in what is believed to be the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in the United States, according to the federal authorities. Officials have said Mr. Bowers used four guns — an AR-15 assault rifle and three Glock .357 handguns — in his shooting spree at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning. An investigation has concluded that the guns were “acquired and possessed legally by Bowers,” the Philadelphia office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said on Tuesday. Mr. Bowers did not fall into any category barred from gun ownership under federal law, including felons, convicted domestic abusers, dishonorably discharged veterans, or people adjudicated to be mentally ill or subject to certain restraining orders.
** Oppel Jr., Richard A. (October 30, 2018). "Synagogue Suspect’s Guns Were All Purchased Legally, Inquiry Finds". The New York Times. Retrieved on November 2, 2018.
* A Pittsburgh synagogue, a Florida high school, a Texas church, a Las Vegas concert, a Connecticut elementary school. These are the locations of some of the deadliest mass shootings in America in recent history, and they all have something in common: The style of weapon used at each horrific scene was the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
** McCandless Farmer, Brit (November 4, 2018). "Learning how to "Stop the Bleed"". 60 Minutes. CBS News. Retrieved on November 5, 2018.
* To get a perspective on how an AR-15 bullet differs from a 9-millimeter bullet, the 60 Minutes team spoke to Don Deyo, a former paramedic and Green Beret who witnessed mass casualties up close on the battlefield. He demonstrated the difference in bullets by shooting rounds into a cut of pork that's similar in size to an average adult human thigh. At first glance, the two rounds looked similar, both leaving an entry wound that's nothing more than a tiny hole in the flesh. But flip the pork over, and the difference is stunning. The 9-millimeter exit wound was small, without much damage to the surrounding area. The AR-15 exit wound left an enormous, gaping hole and shattered the surrounding bone. Those bone fragments, Deyo explained, become projectiles that create further tissue damage.... After an AR-15 style rifle bullet blasts a large cavity through soft tissue, blood pressure then pumps that cavity with blood, causing many victims of AR-15 shots to bleed out before rescue workers can reach them.
** McCandless Farmer, Brit (November 4, 2018). "Learning how to "Stop the Bleed"". 60 Minutes. CBS News. Retrieved on November 5, 2018.
* [A] bomb went off on the inside. And our job is to go in there and clean it up....At some point it's like putting Humpty Dumpty back together again...his organs are now in different pieces and you have to reconstruct them. The arm was missing soft tissue, skin, muscle and part of the nerves were damaged. The bowel has to be put back together some of the areas of injury has to heal itself so you can see that he can walk around like a normal child and behave as normal as possible.
** Lillian Liao, trauma surgeon at the University Hospital of the University of Texas in San Antonio, on treating a Sutherland Springs church shooting survivor (Pelley, Scott (November 4, 2018). "What makes the AR-15 style rifle the weapon of choice for mass shooters?". 60 Minutes. CBS News. Retrieved on November 5, 2018. ).

### 2019

* Pennsylvania lawmakers held a joint session of the state’s General Assembly to remember the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue attack. The memorial on Wednesday came a day after the city’s mayor signed into law new gun control legislation introduced in the aftermath of the Oct. 27 shooting by a white supremacist that killed 11 worshippers.... Under the legislation, the AR-15 assault-style rifle used by the synagogue gunman would be banned.
** Sales, Ben (April 10, 2019). "Pennsylvania lawmakers remember Pittsburgh synagogue shooting attack". Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

### Prevalence in mass shootings

* The AR-15 was likened to "weapons of war" by then-President Obama in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, where 29-year-old Omar Mateen slaughtered 49 people and wounded 53 others in June 2016. And it's the same rifle that keeps appearing again and again as a murder weapon in mass shootings.
** Nestel, M. L. (November 7, 2017). "How assault rifles have played a prominent role in US mass shootings". ABC News. Retrieved on September 26, 2018.
* The nation's mass-shooting problem seems to be getting worse. And the latest, most serious shootings all seem to have one new thing in common: the AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle. The AR-15 typically has large magazines, shoots rounds at higher velocities than handguns, and leaves more complex wounds in victims. In each one of the older shootings on the 10-deadliest list — including the 2007 attack on Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., that left 32 victims dead — the shooters carried handguns. (The exception is the 1984 San Ysidro massacre, where the gunman also used a shotgun and an Uzi semiautomatic carbine.) But in all of the latest incidents — Newtown, Conn., in 2012; San Bernardino, Calif., in 2015; Orlando, Fla., in 2016; Las Vegas, 2017; Sutherland Springs, Texas, 2017 — the attackers primarily used AR-15 semiautomatic rifles. There are a couple of theories that might suggest why AR-15s would be associated with deadlier attacks. AR-15 rifles shoot small but high-velocity .223-caliber rounds that often shatter inside victims' bodies, creating more devastating injuries than the wounds typically left by larger but lower-velocity handgun rounds. Shooters also commonly use the rifles with 30-round magazines, which allow them to fire more rounds uninterrupted, compared with the smaller magazines commonly used in handguns.
** Pearce, Matt (February 14, 2018). "Mass shootings are getting deadlier. And the latest ones all have something new in common: The AR-15". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on September 23, 2018.
* Here is a list of mass shootings in the U.S. that featured AR-15-style rifles during the last 35 years, courtesy of 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 .223-caliber Smith and Wesson rifle with a 100-round magazine, a 12-gauge Remington shotgun and two .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic 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. Oct. 31, 2015: Noah Jacob Harpham, 33, used an AR-15, a .357-caliber revolver and a 9mm semi-automatic pistol to kill three on a street in Colorado Springs, Colo., before he was killed. Dec. 2, 2015: Syed Rizwyan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, 28 and 27, used two AR-15-style, .223-caliber Remington rifles and two 9 mm handguns to kill 14 and injure 21 at his workplace 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 semi-automatic 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. Feb. 14, 2018: Police say Nikolas Cruz, 19, used an AR-15-style rifle to kill at least 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
** Jansen, Bart; Cummings, William (November 6, 2017). "Why mass shooters are increasingly using AR-15s". USA Today. Retrieved on October 9, 2018. ; Cummings, William; Jansen, Bart (February 14, 2018). "Why the AR-15 keeps appearing at America's deadliest mass shootings". USA Today. Retrieved on September 23, 2018.
* Newtown. San Bernardino. Las Vegas. Sutherland Springs. And now, Parkland. Five of the six deadliest mass shootings of the past six years in the United States. In each of them, the gunman had an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.
** Oppel Jr., Richard A. (February 15, 2018). "In Florida, an AR-15 Is Easier to Buy Than a Handgun". The New York Times. Retrieved on September 23, 2018.
* As officials continue to investigate 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who is accused of opening fire on his former high school Wednesday afternoon, killing at least 17 people and injuring more than a dozen others, familiar details are already emerging about the weapon police believe was used in the massacre. Police suspect Cruz was armed with at least one AR-15-style rifle and "countless magazines" in the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This adds to a disturbing trend. In many of the most deadly mass shootings in the last several years, including the Las Vegas massacre on Oct. 1 and the shooting at a Texas church on Nov. 5, the lone gunmen were armed with assault-style rifles like the one reportedly used at the Florida school.
** Wing, Nick; Reilly, Mollie (February 15, 2018). HuffPost. Retrieved on September 24, 2018.
* Six of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. over the past decade have used an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle. The latest instance was Wednesday’s high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 dead and 14 others injured. The gun used in the shooting was a Smith and Wesson M&P AR-15, federal law enforcement officials told the Associated Press. The same model weapon was used in previous mass shootings, including the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting that claimed 12 lives and the rampage in San Bernardino, Calif., that claimed 14. These rifles and other versions of the AR-15 are the civilian equivalent of fully-automatic M16 rifles used by the U.S. military since the Vietnam War. They are fancied by gun owners because they are typically easy to purchase — often for less than $1,000 — and can be customized with a number of accessories, such as bump stocks, which essentially convert the semi-automatic weapons into fully-automatics. A bump stock was deployed by the assailant in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, which left 58 dead, making it the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. Up until that point, the country’s deadliest mass shooting had occurred just a year prior at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, where the perpetrator used an SIG MCX semi-automatic rifle — highly similar to AR-15s in aesthetic and purpose — to kill 49 people. Comparable weapons were also used at Sandy Hook Elementary School (27 dead) and a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church (25 dead). The high number of fatalities in these incidents highlight how AR-15-style guns, much like their M16 cousin, are capable of inflicting serious damage to a number of people at once. “For practical purposes, for the person that’s just tuning in, the non-gun owner, it’s a very similar type of firearm,” Rob Pincus, who has made a career out of training armed professionals, told TIME.
** Jenkins, Aric (February 15, 2018). "Many Mass Shootings in America Have 1 Thing in Common: AR-15 Rifles". Time. Retrieved on September 23, 2018.
* The gunman charged with killing 17 people at a Florida high school on Wednesday used an AR-15 model rifle, a style of gun that has become more commonly used in mass shootings in the past decade. The AR-15 is a semiautomatic rifle that allows the user to fire rapidly and use high-capacity magazines. Four out of the five deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history have taken place since 2012 and all four of those shooters used AR-15 model rifles in their attacks, including Stephen Paddock in Las Vegas and Adam Lanza in Newtown, Conn. The AR-15 model rifle is among the most popular firearms today, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association. Gun owners like them because they are easily customized and can be used for hunting or target practice, according to the association. Some Democratic lawmakers and gun-control groups want to ban or restrict AR-15 model guns, calling them weapons of war.
** Elinson, Zusha; De Avila, Joseph (February 15, 2018). "AR-15 Model Rifle Again Used in a Mass Shooting". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on September 28, 2018.
* An AR-15 once again made an appearance at a mass shooting, this time at a Parkland, Fla., high school on Wednesday...These AR-style rifles have appeared in some of the deadliest shootings in the last few years, including a concert in Las Vegas, a nightclub in Orlando, a church in Texas and an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
** Vitkovskaya, Julie; Martin, Patrick (February 16, 2018). "4 basic questions about the AR-15". The Washington Post. Retrieved on September 23, 2018.
* On average, more than 13,000 people are killed each year in the United States by guns, and most of those incidents involve handguns while a tiny fraction involve an AR-style firearm. Still, the AR plays an oversized role in many of the most high-profile shootings, including the nightclub shooting in Orlando and the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history: the attack by a gunman holed up in a Las Vegas hotel that left 58 dead and hundreds injured.
** "In many U.S. states, 18 is old enough to buy a semiautomatic". Associated Press. CBS News. February 16, 2018. Retrieved on September 26, 2018.
* AR-15-style rifles have been used in recent mass shootings at in Aurora, Colo.; Santa Monica and San Bernardino, Calif.; Orlando, Florida and now Parkland.
** Drabold, Will; Fitzpatrick, Alex (February 20, 2018). "The Florida School Shooter Used An AR-15 Rifle. Here's What to Know About the Gun". Time. Retrieved on September 28, 2018.
* Compared with pistols, assault rifles are used rarely in shootings. According to F.B.I. statistics, 374 people were murdered with any kind of rifle in 2016; 7,105 were killed by a handgun. But the AR-15 has been a recurring character in some of America’s most infamous violent crimes. Adam Lanza used his to kill 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook. Stephen Paddock used an enhanced AR-style gun to kill 58 concertgoers and wound hundreds on the Las Vegas Strip in October. A month later, Devin Kelley murdered 26 congregants with a Ruger AR-15 variant at a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex. And the rampage last month at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., renewed calls for assault-style rifles to be banned — a common refrain after mass shootings.
** Watkins, Ali; Ismay, John; Gibbons-Neff, Thomas (March 3, 2018). "Once Banned, Now Loved and Loathed: How the AR-15 Became ‘America’s Rifle’". The New York Times. Retrieved on November 6, 2018.
* Manliness means violent domination, a point not lost on gun manufacturers. Bushmaster, the maker of the AR-15 rifle — which has been at the center of many mass shootings — advertised the gun with a “Consider Your Man Card Reissued” tagline.
** Cross, Katherine (August 30, 2018). "Toxic gaming culture can’t fully explain the Jacksonville Madden shooting". The Verge (Vox Media). Retrieved on September 26, 2018.

### Weapon of choice in mass shootings

* In recent years, the AR-15 has become, simultaneously, one of most beloved and most vilified rifles in the country. It is no surprise why the gun is so reviled by gun control advocates. Omar Mateen, the gunman in the attack this weekend on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., used a spinoff of the rifle produced by SIG Sauer to kill nearly 50 people. The military-style weapon has also been the gun of choice in several other mass shootings: at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.; at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.; at a holiday party for county health workers in San Bernardino, Calif.; and at the campus of Umpqua Community College in Oregon.
** Feuer, Alan (June 13, 2016). "AR-15 Rifles Are Beloved, Reviled and a Common Element in Mass Shootings". The New York Times. Retrieved on September 24, 2018.
* His killing machine of choice was a mass murderer's best friend — and his enabler a gun lobby that has long opposed efforts to keep assault weapons out of the hands of blood-thirsty maniacs. The madman who killed at least 50 people and wounded 53 others at an Orlando club early Sunday was armed with an AR-15-type rifle.
** Gregorian, Dareh (June 13, 2016). "NRA’s fight to stop assault weapons ban enables killers behind shootings at Orlando nightclub, Newtown, and San Bernardino to use AR-15-type weapons". New York Daily News. Retrieved on September 25, 2018.
* America has grown accustomed to military-style semi-automatic weapons such as the AR-15. It's not hard to see why: These firearms have been heavily marketed to gun owners. But at the same time, they're often the weapons of choice for mass murderers.
** Picchi, Aimee (June 15, 2016). "America's rifle: The marketing of assault-style weapons". CBS MoneyWatch (CBS News). Retrieved on September 3, 2018.
* It was used to slaughter first graders at Sandy Hook, murder Batman fans at Colorado movie theater, kill county workers at a holiday party in San Bernardino. Now a descendant of the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle — a Sig Sauer MCX — has the dubious distinction of being the weapon of choice for a homosexual-hating gunman named Omar Mateen who is being blamed for the worst single-day mass shooting in U.S. history.
** Siemaszko, Corky (June 15, 2016). "AR-15 Style Rifle Used in Orlando Massacre Has Bloody Pedigree". NBC News. Retrieved on September 28, 2018.
* The AR-15 is America’s most popular rifle. It has also been the weapon of choice in mass shootings from Sandy Hook to Aurora to San Bernardino.
** Zhang, Sarah (June 17, 2016). "What an AR-15 Can Do to the Human Body". Wired. Retrieved on September 3, 2018.
* The AR-15, the type of rifle used in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, is the weapon of choice for mass killers...Unfortunately, the compact, easy-to-use lethality of the AR-15 has made it the weapon of choice in mass shootings.
** Smith, Aaron (June 21, 2016). "Why the AR-15 is the mass shooter's go-to weapon". CNN. Retrieved on September 3, 2018.
* They're lightweight, relatively cheap and extremely lethal, inspired by Nazi infantrymen on the Eastern Front during World War II. They're so user-friendly some retailers recommend them for children, yet their design is so aggressive one marketer compared them to carrying a "man card"—although ladies who dare can get theirs in pink. And if the last few mass shootings are any indication, guns modeled after the AR-15 assault rifle—arguably the most popular, most enduring and most profitable firearm in the U.S. -- have become the weapon of choice for unstable, homicidal men who want to kill a lot of people very, very quickly.
** Williams, Joseph P. (November 7, 2017). "How the AR-15 Became One of the Most Popular Guns in America, A brief history of the guns that have become the weapons of choice for mass shootings". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved on September 3, 2018.
* AR-15 style rifles have been the weapon of choice in many recent mass shootings, including the Texas church shooting Sunday, the Las Vegas concert last month, the Orlando nightclub last year and Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
** Jansen, Bart; Cummings, William (6 November 2017), "Why mass shooters are increasingly using AR-15s", USA Today, retrieved on September 3, 2018
* The N.R.A. calls the AR-15 the most popular rifle in America. The carnage in Florida on Wednesday that left at least 17 dead seemed to confirm that the rifle and its variants have also become the weapons of choice for mass killers.
** Oppel Jr., Richard A. (15 February 2018), "In Florida, an AR-15 Is Easier to Buy Than a Handgun", The New York Times, retrieved on September 3, 2018
* While AR-15 style rifles have become the weapon of choice for some of America’s most recent and deadly mass shootings, these military-style guns are still comparatively rarely used in everyday gun violence. Between 2010 and 2014, only 3.55% of gun murders were carried out with any kind of rifle, according to a Guardian analysis of FBI data. The majority of gun murders are still committed with handguns.
** Beckett, Lois (February 16, 2018). "Most Americans can buy an AR-15 rifle before they can buy beer". The Guardian. Retrieved on March 2, 2018.
* AR-15-style rifles have become something of a weapon of choice for mass shooters. One was used last year to kill 26 people during Sunday morning church services in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and it was among the stockpile of firearms used a month earlier to kill 58 concertgoers in Las Vegas. AR-15-style rifles were also used at the shootings at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida; at an employee training in San Bernardino, California, and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
** Lloyd, Whitney (February 16, 2018). "Why AR-15-style rifles are popular among mass shooters". ABC News. Retrieved on September 28, 2018.
* It adds insult to the literal injuries and loss of life suffered by today's victims that even though the killer was known to be too dangerous to have guns, his father chose to rearm him including, reportedly, with the AR-15 used this morning, a weapon of war that now happens to be the weapon of choice in far too many mass killings in America.
** Kris Brown, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, after the Nashville Waffle House shooting (Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (April 22, 2018). Brady Campaign Responds to Developments in Nashville Waffle House Shooting. Press release.).
* The mass murder last week at the Pittsburgh Synagogue has something in common with the deadliest massacres: the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Variations of the AR-15 were used to kill at a Texas church, a Las Vegas concert, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida and Sandy Hook Elementary School. The AR-15 style rifle is the most popular rifle in America. There are well over 11 million, and they are rarely used in crime. Handguns kill far more people, but the AR-15 is the choice of our worst mass murderers. AR-15 ammunition travels up to three times the speed of sound.
** Pelley, Scott (November 4, 2018). "What makes the AR-15 style rifle the weapon of choice for mass shooters?". 60 Minutes. CBS News. Retrieved on November 5, 2018.

### Barbie doll for men

* They are Barbies for boys.
** Edward Avila, founder of the website ar15.com (Swaine, Jon. "Automatic for the people". The Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved on September 3, 2018. )
* Smith & Wesson is one of many firearms manufacturers to produce a version of the AR-15, marketing more than a dozen models that range in price from about $700 to $2,000. The weapon is popular among collectors, military veterans and target shooters who say it is easy to handle and can be modified in numerous ways. Some soldiers call it “a Barbie doll for men” because it has a wide range of accessories and replacement parts, including different styles of barrels, stocks, magazines and scopes.
** Dao, James (July 23, 2012). "Aurora Gunman’s Arsenal: Shotgun, Semiautomatic Rifle and, at the End, a Pistol". The New York Times. Retrieved on October 23, 2018.
* Enthusiasts praise the AR-15 rifle as lightweight, durable, accurate and, compared with other long guns, gentle in its kick. They describe the rifle as a gadget geek's dream—the "Barbie doll" of firearms, as one gun dealer described it—because of an array of accessories that allow it to be easily customized.
** Goode, Erica (December 16, 2012). "Rifle Used in Killings, America’s Most Popular, Highlights Regulation Debate". The New York Times. Retrieved on October 6, 2018.
* This is the man's Barbie doll — you know, the Mr. Potato Head of firearms, because you can interchange so many different things to make it customized to you, to be able to make it comfortable when you shoot.
** Mike Collins, rifle owner (Chang, Ailsa (June 24, 2013). "Why The AR-15 Is More Than Just A Gun". Morning Edition. NPR. Retrieved on September 3, 2018. )
* For the most part all those add-ons are primarily cosmetic (folding stocks, bayonet mounts, pistol grips, etc.), which is why some AR-15 enthusiasts like to call them Barbie Dolls for Men.
** Reeve, Elspeth (January 8, 2013). "A GIF Guide to the Most Bannable Semi-Automatic Weapons". The Atlantic. Retrieved on September 3, 2018.
* Enthusiasts sometimes describe the AR-15 as “the man’s Barbie doll,” an almost infinitely malleable collectible that owners can accessorize with infrared scopes, grips, flashlights and other add-ons.
** Fisher, Marc (February 15, 2018). "The AR-15: ‘America’s rifle’ or illegitimate killing machine?". The Washington Post. Retrieved on September 3, 2018.

### Weapon of war

* This morning’s massacre of innocent civilians in Orlando is more horrific evidence of the unique lethality of the AR-15. It is no wonder that this weapon was chosen by today’s shooter, as it has been by so many before him, and as it undoubtedly will be again. It was designed for the United States military to do to enemies of war exactly what it did this morning: kill mass numbers of people with maximum efficiency and ease. It is the gold standard for killing the enemy in battle, just as it has become the gold standard for mass murder of innocent civilians. The gun industry pretends the civilian AR-15 is vastly different than the military version, because it does not have select fire. This is a charade: the industry knows that the weapon is most lethal in semi-automatic “one-shot, one-kill” mode, yet these companies continue to sell it to civilians, abandoning reason in exchange for profit.
** Joshua Koskoff, attorney for the familes of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, after the Orlando nightclub shooting (Buncombe, Andrew (June 13, 2016). "Orlando shooting: Campaigners demand ban of AR-15 rifle – 'the gold standard for mass murder of innocent civilians'". The Independent. Retrieved on September 24, 2018. ; Sullivan, Andy (June 12, 2016). "Assault rifle used in Florida shooting drives gun control debate". Reuters. Retrieved on September 24, 2018. ; Stuart, Tessa (June 13, 2016). "Everything You Need to Know About AR-15-Style Rifles". Rolling Stone. Retrieved on September 26, 2018. ).
* The AR-15 was likened to "weapons of war" by then-President Obama in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, where 29-year-old Omar Mateen slaughtered 49 people and wounded 53 others in June 2016. And it's the same rifle that keeps appearing again and again as a murder weapon in mass shootings.
** Nestel, M. L. (November 7, 2017). "How assault rifles have played a prominent role in US mass shootings". ABC News. Retrieved on September 26, 2018.
* I turned 18 the day after. Woke up to the news that my best friend was gone. And I don’t understand why I can still go in a store and buy a weapon of war. An AR. I was reading today that a person, 20 years old, walked into a store and bought an AR-15 in five minutes with an expired ID. How is it that easy to buy that type of weapon? How is it that easy to buy this type of weapon? How do we not stop this after Columbine? After Sandy Hook? I’m sitting with a mother who lost her son. It’s still happening...We need to do something. That’s why we’re here. So let’s be strong for the fallen who don’t have a voice to speak anymore. And let’s never let this happen again. Please. Please.
** Sam Zeif, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student and Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor, to President Donald Trump at the White House on February 21, 2018 (McAfee, Tierney (February 21, 2018). "Weeping Survivor of Florida School Shooting Confronts President Trump on Gun Control: ‘Please, Please!’". People. Retrieved on September 1, 2018. ; DePaolo, Joe (February 21, 2018). "Parkland Survivor to Trump: ‘I Don’t Understand Why I Can Still Go Into a Store and Buy a Weapon of War’". Mediate. Retrieved on September 1, 2018. ; Kirby, Jen (February 21, 2018). "Parkland shooting survivor Samuel Zeif to Trump: "How did this not stop after Columbine?"". Vox. Retrieved on September 1, 2018. ).
* This is an instrument of war designed for the battlefield that is marketed and sold to the general public.
** Mark Barden, father of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim Daniel Barden, at a press conference in February, 2016 ("Maker of rifle used in Sandy Hook shooting seeks dismissal of lawsuit". Chicago Tribune. February 22, 2016. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; "AR-15 gun maker seeks Newtown victim lawsuit dismissal". Associated Press. CBS News. February 23, 2016. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ; Hu, Caitlin (June 12, 2016). "The AR-15 is the gun of choice for mass shootings and it’s easier to buy in Florida than a pistol". Quartz. Retrieved on September 22, 2018. ).
* The specifications of assault-style rifles vary depending on ammunition, but many tests put the muzzle velocity of a standard round from an AR-15 at 3,200 feet per second, making it accurate up to 500 yards ― more than a quarter-mile. This makes rounds from an AR-15 or other assault-style weapons far more devastating than those fired from small-caliber handguns.
** Wing, Nick; Reilly, Mollie (February 14, 2018). "Here’s What You Need To Know About The Weapons Of War Used In Mass Shootings". HuffPost. Retrieved on March 2, 2018.

## See also

* AK-47
* Assault rifle
* Assault weapon
* 2012 Aurora shooting
* Bushmaster XM-15‎
* Colt AR-15
* 2017 Las Vegas shooting‎
* 2013 Los Angeles International Airport shooting‎
* Orlando nightclub shooting‎
* Pittsburgh synagogue shooting‎
* 2015 San Bernardino attack‎
* Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting‎
* SIG MCX‎
* Smith & Wesson M&P15‎
* Sutherland Springs church shooting
* Stoneman Douglas High School shooting‎