Nobody Knows Exactly How Many People Are Getting Killed With Assault-Style Rifles

The school shooting last month in Parkland, Florida, has sparked another passionate debate about the dangers of assault-style rifles, such as the AR-15 used to kill 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The conversation has understandably run high on emotions, but it has also lacked a concrete answer to a question at the core of this issue: How frequently are these weapons actually used in fatal shootings around the U.S.?

Supporters of gun reform believe it’s far too easy to get these semiautomatic rifles, which can be equipped with magazines that hold 30 rounds or more and have been used to quickly inflict mass casualties in numerous horrific shootings over the past few years. They argue that these worst-case scenarios are reason enough to restrict access to this sort of weaponry.

But defenders of assault-style rifles note that these firearms appear only rarely in the more than 11,000 firearm homicides around the U.S. each year. The overwhelming majority involve handguns, according to federal data and other counts, including one done by this reporter in 2016.


Source : huffingtonpost