AR-15 rifle, the preferred weapon in mass killings
President Barack Obama made clear on Wednesday that he wants to push initiatives in Congress to establish some kind of control over the so-called assault weapons, which were already banned for civilian use between 1994 and 2004.
These weapons include the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, a civilian version of the M16 military rifle, which investigators say was one of the weapons used by Adam Lanza in his assault on children and teachers at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown. Connecticut.
In fact 26 people died (20 minors and six adults).
In addition, it was the weapon used by James Holmes on July 19 in the shooting at a movie theater outside of Denver, Colorado, in which 12 people were killed and 58 wounded.
High speed
The AR-15 is a light semiautomatic rifle, with charger of different capacities and a rotary safety lock, qualified by experts as fast and powerful.
The fact that it is semi-automatic means that the user must press the trigger to fire each bullet, but the weapon automatically prepares to fire again.
The rifle was originally developed by the company ArmaLite as a special weapon for the United States Army. Due to financial problems, ArmaLite sold the design of the AR-15 to Colt and the weapon became part of the US military system like the M16 rifle.
Colt introduced the AR-15 on the market as the semiautomatic version of the M16 rifle for civilian sales in 1963. Although the name AR-15 remained Colt's trademark, other variants of the weapon are manufactured, modified and sold independently under other names and are made by other producers.
The AR-15 is capable of firing many bullets at high speed, with rounds of 10, 30 or even up to 100 projectiles without having to reload the weapon.
The range of the bullet ranges between 400 and 600 meters and are weapons that are often seen in shooting competitions, or hunting activities.
Bulletproof vests used by police officers do not fully protect against AR-15 projectiles.
The victims
According to the latest report on the crime of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), of the 12,664 victims of firearms in the United States last year, 323 died by guns.
The ammunition
It is early to determine if the measures that the administration of President Barack Obama intends to adopt will be aimed at a new veto that affects the AR-15 rifle.
In the opinion of Jeffrey Green, in the political discussion it would be easier to reach a consensus if, instead of focusing the debate on the type of weapons that may be inside or outside of an official prohibition, the amount of ammunition that a person could have in your power.
Likewise, Green believes that more precision should be applied in reviewing the background of people who wish to buy a weapon. Right now all states are obliged to do so, the problem comes with the sale of weapons through the internet or with second-hand weapons