Arms organizations in the territory recommend the use of this type of rifle for personal defense or hunting animals. But, the count of the massacres registered during the last 10 years shows the destiny of this easily acquired device
A decade of mass shootings in USA with AR-15 rifles
The AR-15 it is the most popular rifle in the US, with an estimated more than 10 million units circulating among civilians throughout the United States, according to the National Rifle Association (NRA, for its acronym in English) .
This same organization has been in charge of promoting its use, regardless of the history of its use in different massacres in the country.
The organization has indicated thatthe AR-15 is the perfect home defense rifle and that the build and customization process is a “fun reward”.
However, the evidence shows that The weapon has been used for at least a decade as a resource for massive and deadly attacks in different locations.
In 2012, the semi-automatic rifle was used in the Denver massacre, which took place on Friday, July 20, during the premiere of the movie The Dark Knight Rises (Batman: The Dark Knight Rises) in Aurora County, Colorado. .
In the event, a man entered the movie theater and fired his weapon at the audience causing the death of 12 people and leaving another 59 injured.
12 people died in the Denver massacre
The AR-15 is also characterized by using bullets that have a fairly strong impact power, capable of pass through normal vehicles and glass.
On December 14, 2012, this rifle was also used in an attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where twenty-eight people died, including its author, Adam Lanza, his mother, twenty were children and another six adults.
Three years later, in 2015, a weapon of this type was also it was used at a banquet of the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, which was held in an auditorium of at least one hundred people. The shooters, an American couple of Pakistani origin, entered the place of the event and shot until causing the death of 14 people and leaving another 21 wounded.
The AR-15 has also been considered as a popular weapon, due to the fact that some models can incorporate precision sights and night optics< /b>, making them more lethal.
The Orlando massacre, in 2016, is the event of this type where a greater number of people died from the impact of bullets from this rifle.< /p>
On June 12 of that year, 50 people died and 53 were injured at the Pulse gay nightclub, in the town of the state of Florida when a man of Muslim origin entered the place shooting and took hostage a group of local assistants.
The Orlando massacre, in 2016, is the event of its kind where a greater number of people died from the impact of bullets from this rifle
A year later the Mandalay Bay Las Vegas, Nevada, was the scene of a new mass shooting perpetrated with an AR-15 rifle. On October 1 at 10:08 p.m. local time, during the Route 91 Harvest country music festival celebration, a lone shooter, Stephen Paddock, fired into the crowd from his room on the 32nd floor of the hotel, leaving 59 people dead and 851 wounded.
The rifle is easy to customize to suit whoever buys it and also has a large storage capacity for bullets.
On November 5, 2017 there was a shooting in Sutherland Springs(Wilson County), a small town of 500 inhabitants in the state of Texas. A man armed with an AR-15 entered the church at 11:30 a.m. and started shooting, killing 26 people and wounding 20 others.
Months later, On February 14, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. 17 people were killed and 17 more were injured when a former school student entered the campus with an AR-15 rifle, pulled the fire alarm and began shooting at running students and teachers amidst the confusion.
On April 22, 2018, another mass shooting took place at a Waffle House restaurant in the Antioch neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee. Travis Jeffrey Reinking, 29, fatally shot four people and wounded two others with an AR in the midst of a bout of severe schizophrenia
After each of these events, the need to open a debate regarding easy access to weapons in the United States has been raised. However, so far they have not prospered in tangible actions.
The rifle, AR-15, is easy to customize to suit whoever buys it and, in addition, it has a large bullet storage capacity
Another mass shooting with an AR-15 was carried out in the Pittsburgh synagogue amid an anti-Semitic terrorist attack that took place at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The congregation was attacked during Shabbat morning services on October 27, 2018. The perpetrator killed eleven people and injured six, including several Holocaust survivors.
In April 2019, an armed man identified as John Timothy Earnest, 19, entered the Chabad Synagogue of Poway on the last day of the Jewish holiday of Passover and fatally shot a woman and wounded three others, including the synagogue’s rabbi. The attack was also carried out with an AR-15.
On August 31, 2019, a new shooting occurred in the cities of Midland and Odessa, in West Texas. A man armed with an AR-15 shot several people from a vehicle. Eight people were killed, including the perpetrator who was killed when confronting the police, and twenty-five people were injured, including three police officers.
The state of Texas is where most of these types of attacks have been recorded. In this region, people over 18 years of age can legally buy long weapons, such as rifles or shotguns. With few exceptions, you must be 21 years old to purchase pistols.
In April 2019, a gunman identified as John Timothy Earnest, 19, entered the Chabad synagogue of Poway
A mass shooting took place at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, on March 22, 2021. Ten people were killed, including a local police officer a caused by the impact of bullets from an AR rifle.
On May 14, 2022, a mass shooting at a Tops supermarket in the city of Buffalo, New York, left as balance 10 dead and three wounded. The shooter, who was using an AR-15, livestreamed the attack on Twitch and posted a manifesto describing himself as a white supremacist. Eleven of the victims were black people.
Following this week’s Ualde massacre, New York announced it will allow it to sue gun manufacturers for his responsibility in cases of armed violence.
As in all previous massacres, the recent attack on a group of students in a school in the state of Texas was perpetrated by with an AR-15.
The gunman, who had attended Uvalde High School, purchased one of the rifles from a federally licensed gun store on May 17, the day after his 18th birthday, according to authorities. A day later, on May 18, the gunman purchased 375 rounds of ammunition. And on May 20, he bought the second rifle.
That’s four days before Tuesday’s massacre, which ended with the deaths of all 19 students and two adults. .