When suspected gunman Omar Mateen shot more than 100 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning, killing 49, he was armed with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. He purchased the gun last week, legally, despite his history of domestic violence and despite the suspicions of the FBI that he might have been recently radicalized. As much of the coverage has noted, this is the same type of weapon used in the 2012 massacres in Aurora and Newtown, as well as last year’s attacks at Umpqua Community College and on county employees in San Bernardino. It’s also the same rifle millions of Americans have tucked away in closets at home.
If there’s one weapon that reflects the intractability of the gun debate in the United States, the AR-15 is it. The gun is endlessly customizable and available from many different manufacturers, but all AR-15s share a common lineage, dating back to a prototype built by ArmaLite for the U.S. military in the late 1950s, and they all accept the same interchangeable magazines. For gun advocates, the AR-15 has become an emblem of patriotism and even virility. “Consider your man card reissued,” reads an advertisement by Bushmaster, picturing their latest iteration of the iconic rifle. When Senator Ted Cruz wrapped the barrel of a gun in raw bacon, fired it until the hot muzzle made the meat sizzle, and ate some, he used an AR-15. In his losing 2014 bid for reelection, U.S. Representative Paul Braun called the gun a “symbol of liberty” and offered one as a campaign giveaway; last year, after a gun-rights activist challenged Lindsey Graham’s commitment to the second amendment, the senator responded, “Come to my house. I will show you my AR-15.”
Gun control activists despise the weapon because it gives an individual the power to inflict mass casualties as quickly, reliably and accurately as anything else on the civilian market. Which is exactly the same reason gun rights extremists revere this rifle. Those who envision themselves fighting for freedom against an oppressive government don’t want to be outgunned. Indeed, in the 2014 Nevada standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and supporters of the Bundy Ranch, civilians armed with AR-15 rifles forced federal agents to stand down. Modern versions of the “Come and Take It” flag from the Battle of Gonzales, long a symbol of armed resistance, often replace the black cannon of the original design with the familiar silhouette of an AR-15 rifle—a symbolic (as well as actual) threat to any hypothetical tyrant considering gun confiscation.
Not that the AR-15 is only popular with anti-government militias. With lower recoil and less expensive ammunition than larger hunting rifles, the AR has become popular with recreational target shooters. In the 2000s, the National Shooting Sports Foundation urged gun enthusiasts to start using the term “modern sporting rifle” as a friendlier alternative to “assault rifle” or “assault weapon.” The NSSF also promoted new, organized shooting competitions that incorporated the AR-15, which is now the single best-selling rifle in the United States.
The weapon has been a subject of controversy since at least as early as 2002, when a Bushmaster clone of the AR-15 was used in the Beltway sniper attacks. And today, when the presumptive nominees of both major parties have made gun policy a central issue of their respective campaigns, America’s most popular rifle is once again in the crosshairs.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed legislation that defined the AR-15 as an “assault weapon” and restricted its sale. But manufacturers quickly offered legal alternatives, and clever marketing actually capitalized on the forbidden allure of the banned military-style weapon. Harder to come by were the pre-ban 30-round magazines, but these, too, were available (used) at a premium. By the sunset of the ban in 2004, there was a robust market for the AR-15.
In the years that followed, as the AR-15 became a recurring instrument of several mass shootings, there have been intermittent efforts to reintroduce a federal assault weapons ban. Gun rights groups have been adamant and consistent in their position that such bans do not work, and should not even be discussed. In 2013, shortly after the Newtown massacre, a spokesperson for Gun Owners of America told US News that compromise on an assault weapons ban was out of the question. “As a strategic measure, it would be a horrific mistake for Republicans to play this game again,” said Michael Hammond, a legislative consultant for GOA.
But Orlando will likely renew the debate once more. In a statement on Sunday, Hillary Clinton, who throughout the primary campaign has made references to her support for an assault weapons ban, said “we need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has identified himself as a gun owner with a permit to carry, but hasn’t talked much about specific weapons—with the exception of the AR-15. In an interview last summer with the website Ammoland.com, he defended the weapon: “Gun-banners are unfortunately preoccupied with the AR-15, magazine capacity, grips, and other aesthetics,” Trump said. He has a bit of a point. Some proposed bans on assault weapons have emphasized particular features, such as collapsible stocks, flash suppressors and pistol grips—scary-looking components, perhaps, but largely irrelevant to the lethality of the weapon they’re attached to. Senator Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), a sponsor of a failed 2007 assault weapons ban, was stymied in a television interview when asked to explain the function of a barrel shroud, which her bill would have regulated.
Gun rights groups have repeatedly expressed frustrations with critics of the AR-15 and similar weapons who comment without expertise or even familiarity. In his first interview following the Newtown shooting, NRA Chief Wayne LaPierre told NBC’s David Gregory that attempts to ban assault weapons are based on “lies” propagated by journalists and politicians. “They say these guns are more powerful. Not true. They say they make bigger holes. Not true. They say they use larger bullets. Not true.”
Indeed, compared to other common rifles in the United States, the 5.56mm (or .223 caliber) ammunition typically used in the AR-15 is not inordinately powerful—if by “power” we mean the diameter and muzzle energy of the bullet. Earlier military rifles and many common hunting rifles use larger, .30-caliber ammunition. Part of the design philosophy of the AR-15, when it was first developed for the U.S. military in the late 1950s, was that a smaller cartridge would facilitate the use of higher capacity magazines, and allow individual troops to each carry more ammunition. The smaller bullet was also less likely to pass straight through a living target. Instead, the unstable projectile would tumble through the body, damaging tissues, splintering bone and causing massive internal bleeding.
In an interview with HBO’s Bryant Gumbel last month, weapons designer Jim Sullivan said it was “sickening” to see children killed with the AR-15. He said that the civilian AR-15 was in many respects comparable to the military M-16, and that when he helped develop the AR-15 prototype, “civilian sales was never the intended purpose.”
Following the interview, Sullivan was lambasted by right-wing media and in online gun forums. This phenomenon—wherein gun fanatics eat their own for making unsupportive comments about the civilian use of military weapons—has a name. It’s called “The Zumbo Effect,” after sportswriter Jim Zumbo. The hunter lost his TV show and syndicated column in 2007 following a wave of outrage from former fans after he described high-capacity, semiautomatic firearms like the AR-15 as “terrorist rifles” and said “I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity.” (Zumbo later tried to walk back his remarks, and Sullivan, too, has said HBO misrepresented his interview—a claim the cable network has refuted.)
To Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Ghawi was murdered with an AR-15 in the Aurora theater massacre, the perversity of civilians owning such weapons is unambiguous. “You look at how many mass shootings we’ve had with this type of firearm, and you have to look at that and go wow—something’s wrong,” Phillips says. “Why are citizens allowed to have a gun that was designed for warfare? It doesn’t make any sense to me, unless we’re really at war with ourselves.”
Though the AR-15 might typify the deadly potential of a semiautomatic weapon, it’s hardly the only option for a gunman looking to inflict mass casualties. Various other weapons have been used in shootings at Tucson, Fort Hood and the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin. With the notable exception of the Virginia Tech massacre (where the largest magazine used had a capacity of 15 rounds), the most severe mass shootings in recent years have involved magazines of 17-, 19-, 20- or 30-round capacities (or greater). If those seem large for civilian needs, the evidence would seem to agree: In my research, I have been unable to find a single documented incident in which a civilian (non law-enforcement) in the United States has fired more than 15 rounds in legitimate self-defense.
In many respects, the debate about the AR-15 rifle is more properly a debate about ammunition magazine capacity, which has been a critical component of every proposed ban on assault weapons. Should a civilian be able to purchase a weapon like the AR-15, which is typically sold with a 30-round magazine and is capable of accepting even larger, 100-round drum magazines?
Opponents of magazine capacity restrictions point to videos of trick shooters who can exchange an empty magazine for a full one in the blink of an eye, citing this feat as evidence that capacities are irrelevant. Of course, there are also impressive videos online of Larry Bird making half-court shots; but that doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant where you draw the three-point line.
There is evidence that limiting magazine size could reduce the severity of mass shootings. Contrary to the NRA assertion that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” there are several examples in which unarmed bystanders have been able to stop a shooting when the perpetrator paused to exchange magazines. This was the case in the Long Island Railroad shooting of 1993, the Thurston High School shooting of 1998 and the Tucson shooting of 2011. In 2010, law enforcement officers in Austin tackled a gunman (rather than shoot him) because they saw an opportunity to do so while he was reloading his empty weapon.
Legislation introduced last December by Representative David Cicilline (D-RI) would restrict magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds. That bill was referred to subcommittee in January, with barely any mention since. In the immediate aftermath of the Aurora and Sandy Hook shootings, legislators in Colorado, New York and Connecticut moved to restrict magazine capacities in those states, passing limits of 15, 7 and 10 rounds, respectively. A similar bill passed in New Jersey, lowering the maximum legal magazine capacity from 15 rounds to just 10, but Governor Chris Christie vetoed it, saying he believed such limits were arbitrary and that he would “not support such a trivial approach to the sanctity of human life.”
And while the toll of mass shootings has failed to produce any substantive new laws at the federal level in the last 22 years, gun violence prevention advocates like Sandy Phillips perceive growing public outrage—and new allegiances—that may turn the tide. Just as the Colorado Springs attack last year on a Planned Parenthood clinic (also perpetrated with an AR-15) highlighted the connection between gun violence and women’s rights, and the Charleston church shooting highlighted the connection between gun violence and civil rights, the Orlando shooting at a gay nightclub might help to define gun violence as an intersectional issue—about a particular gun, yes, but also about much more.
“The LGBT population has been so good about banding together and getting laws passed that are good laws for them as citizens of this country,” Phillips says. She recognizes that the fight for marriage rights was a long one that required perseverance, just as efforts to reduce gun violence will. “I would love to see them join forces with us now. I hope it happens and I think it will.”