San Bernardino, Newtown, Aurora and now Orlando what they have in common: Mass killings perpetrated with legally bought semi automatic long guns that were previously banned under the Federal Assault Weapon Ban. The ban was let expire under pressure of the NRA and people that needed to fell like true warriors with their toys with the help of a spineless Congress and an collaborating WH under G W Bush (it seems creating mass murders overseas was not enough and domestic mass murders had to be made easier too).
Since the ban either assault weapons or extended magazines- also regulated n that ban- have been used in nearly all the mass murders in the USA. The assault weapon, particularly the Ar 15 variants have also become through media and video games and publicity by the gun companies a best seller for the gun industry. How is that popularity affecting our society:
In the past 10 years, assault-style rifles have been used in 14 public mass shootings. Half of those shootings have occurred since last June.
www.washingtonpost.com/…
That’s a recent article from the post talking about this very popular military grade weapon that anyone, anyone, can buy basically over the counter in many states. The politicians deny it but terrorist groups know how stupidly easy is to get your hands on them legally (from same article)
In 2011, al-Qaeda encouraged its followers to take advantage of lax guns laws, purchase assault-style weapons and use them to shoot people.
"America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms," American-born al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn said in a video. "You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?"
The only thing he is wrong is that they are not fully automatic, they are just semi, but modern semis with large capacity magazines are just as deadlier if not more, particularly when the shooter is not an experienced shooter than fully autos.
There were several issues with the AWB and it was not great in curbing general gun crime and gun violence. First because there were not as many assault weapons and for most crimes an easy to hide hand gun is much better than a long gun, but clearly for mass shootings there has been a tremendous increase.
The lift of the ban is making assault weapons have lead to a growth in popularity and sell of Assault weapons that are now the most profitable and heavily marketed guns and they are making their way easily and legally to the hands of murderers.
Here is a great article by Mother Jones, although is from 2013, When Dianne Feistein tried to get a new and improved AWB passed, and things are much worse now, these last two years have been horrible. www.motherjones.com/...
More than half of the killers we studied in our investigation of 62 mass shootings over the last three decades possessed weapons that would be banned by Feinstein's bill, including various semi-automatic rifles, guns with military features, and handguns using magazines with more than 10 rounds. The damage these weapons can cause has been on grim display since last summer, from Aurora to Milwaukee to Minneapolis to Newtown, where attacks carried out with them left a total of 118 people injured and dead.