Ar 15 what is it

Of those 10 acts, the seven most recent -- including Parkland -- involved what he defined as an assault weapon. The other three shootings, carried out with handguns, were the oldest, one taking place in and two others happening in Alex would have turned 18 in July.

Schwartz, along with other family members and survivors of the Parkland and Orlando mass shootings, launched Ban Assault Weapons NOW BAWN , a grassroots initiative aiming to ban assault weapons in Florida through legislative and electoral efforts. BAWN first looked to bring a constitutional amendment banning assault weapons before Florida voters, and collected signatures and donations across the state, she said.

Florida's Supreme Court rejected the proposed constitutional amendment in June on grounds that the wording was misleading, The Miami Herald reported. The ballot measure summary, which was limited to 75 words, said assault weapons lawfully possessed before the new rule would be exempt; the ballot measure's full text said the weapons could not be transferred, the Herald reported.

The majority of the justices, however, said "the summary exempts the weapon itself. But no Republicans -- who hold the majority in Florida's legislature -- would co-sponsor the bills, Schwartz said. Those numbers mostly match up with how members of political parties feel about a potential ban. We'll notify you here with news about. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? MORE: America has a gun violence problem. What do we do about it? MORE: People hoping to protect kids from accidental gun injuries, deaths push for stronger safety laws.

Comments 0. Top Stories. That transformed a specific brand to a more generic offering on which a mini-industry would flourish. When the AR and other semiautomatic rifles began to turn up in shootings, a movement began to restrict their manufacture and sale. Much of the outrage stemmed from the militaristic appearance of those guns, and their ability to fire rapidly.

But there was also a more visceral reason, involving flesh and blood. ARs inflict much more damage to human tissue than the typical handgun, which is used in most shootings. That's largely because of the speed at which projectiles leave the weapons; they are much faster out of the muzzle of an AR, or similar rifle, and deliver a more devastating blow to bones and organs.

Those projectiles are also more likely to break apart as they pass through the body, inflicting more damage. Manufacturers continued making versions of the AR that complied with the new law, which was allowed to expire in That set the stage for an explosion in AR sales. Anti-terror police forces began patrolling cities and transportation hubs, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were covered intimately. That higher visibility seemingly fed a desire among gun owners to get what the troops and cops were using.

With encouragement from the gun industry, the AR grew popular not only among people who enjoyed owning the latest tactical gear, but also among recreational and competitive target shooters, and hunters. Many saw it as a pinnacle of firearms engineering — ergonomic, accurate, reliable. Production of AR-style guns has soared since the federal ban expired. In , , were made. In , the number was 1. The organization does not provide sales data, nor does it have production estimates, but says that year's activity likely broke all records.

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 ARs , gun groups say. Chandler is an unlikely AR enthusiast.

He grew up outside Baltimore, a city plagued by gun violence, raised by parents opposed to firearms and was friends with kids whose lives had been torn apart by them. For much of his youth he considered himself anti-gun.

Then a well-to-do neighbor was shot in a home invasion. Chandler realized that his family had no weapon to defend itself, and decided to buy a gun when he got old enough.

When he turned 21 and began shopping, Maryland tightened laws in response to the December mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. That measure banned many types of semiautomatic rifles, so when Chandler eventually decided that he wanted an AR, he built one from scratch, adhering to the new restrictions. On one of his recent visits to a gun range, Chandler showed what made the AR a cutting-edge gun when it was created, and one reason why it became so widespread.

Pushing the gun's "takedown pins" with his fingers, he broke his gun down into its basic components, and within several seconds snapped it back together. This is why some people compare the AR to a car chassis, others to Legos or Mr. A key difference between the M and AR is that an automatic rifle continuously fires when the trigger is held down, while the user must pull and release the trigger after each shot with a semi-automatic gun. But while such weapons have their own names, the popularity of the AR means that the name is often used as a generic term for all ARstyle rifles.

In the past year alone, ARstyle rifles have been used in multiple attacks, including a school shooting in Florida in February that left 17 people dead; and the assault last October on a country music concert in Las Vegas in which 58 were killed. Years earlier, the rifle was the focus of gun control debates when it was used in the shooting of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that claimed 27 lives. Gun control advocates say ARstyle weapons have been used in most of the deadliest mass shootings in the US of this decade.