Well, not exactly. Lost in the diatribes about banning assault weapons is this inconvenient fact: the vast majority of mass shooters use handguns, not assault rifles, in their attacks.
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Just past year in San Bernardino, Calif., a pair of terrorists killed 14 innocent people and wounded 21 others. But when it comes to the two (separate) types of weapons, there is a great deal of difference. On Thursday, The Boston Globe ran a full page ad on the paper’s cover featuring a military-style weapon and a plea to “Make it stop” in bold, capital letters. Here’s a quick look. Chris Murphy of CT, where 26 first graders and their teachers were killed in a devastating school shooting in 2012, began a filibuster to force a vote on a proposed “no-fly, no-buy” list that would prevent individuals on the “no fly” list from purchasing weapons. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, would ban not only the sale but also the possession of high-capacity ammunition magazines.
Easy access to guns is the one, concrete, shared factor in mass shootings, and the one that should be easiest to address.
Despite their controversial reputation, assault rifles do not often turn up at murder scenes.
Technically, there is no such thing. The call for a renewed law has been getting louder since Sunday’s Orlando shooting, especially because one of the guns used fits that description.
Indeed, what factors have helped make it possible for far too many other killers to be able to buy assault weapons like the AR-15 and its cousins? They should make it impossible for anyone, other than police or military, to purchase an assault weapon.
There were 296 mass shootings by the time of Wasserman Schultz’s tweet according to the Mass Shooting Tracker but 122 of those incidents resulted in no casualties.
New Jersey, meanwhile, has banned more than 50 gun models by name – including the AR-15. That is the company that first developed the weapon almost 60 years ago. About 1.4 million were killed in major conflicts starting from the Revolutionary War to the Iraq war, while there have been 1.5 million gun-related deaths since 1968.
The standard magazine for a Glock, like the one Mateen carried, is 15 rounds.
At Van’s Deer Processing & Sporting Goods in Brandon, more than 40 semi-automatic rifles have been sold since the mass shooting.
Others say that the Obama administration’s “political correctness” regarding Muslim immigrants to the United States exacerbated a terrorist threat. To purchase a gun from a gun store, you must pay $8 and complete the paperwork for a background check.
It is impossible to tell from early reports how lengthy an investigation of Mateen was, whether he was still being monitored in any way, or whether his wife had reported his violence to law enforcement-but even if he was still being monitored for terrorism ties, he would be able to legally get a gun. If the gun is a rifle or a shotgun you do not have to wait three days to get it. But precise numbers are anyone’s guess, because the federal government does not track sales or require purchasers to register long guns.
America needs tough gun safety laws and they need to be passed at both federal and state levels. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, an “assault rifle” (or automatic weapon) is a machine gun. At Eagle Armory in north Springfield, owner Zach Terhark says Obama’s message did not surprise him, but he thinks it is the wrong approach.
– All firearm purchases from federally licensed dealers require a background check, regardless of whether the buyer has a concealed weapons permit. Those weapons are hard to come by and generally pretty expensive.
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We want to hear from you. If you do, expect to sit in prison for 10 years as you figure out how to pay the $100,000 fine.
