law, the term "semiautomatic," as opposed to "automatic," means the gun's operator must pull the trigger to fire each shot. What is the AR-15, and how is it different from other popular firearms?Īn AR-15 is a type of semiautomatic, or "self-loading," assault rifle.Īs defined in U.S.
A Facebook page that reposted the tweet, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Fans, said it was under the impression that the tweet was true. USA TODAY reached out to Best for comment. The tweet was soon posted to Facebook one post received over 2,400 reactions and 1,600 shares.īest's claim is mostly accurate: All but one of the shootings involved the use of at least one AR-15-style assault rifle. However, as we explain below, in several cases shooters had multiple guns - including 23 in the case of the Las Vegas gunman. Best, a progressive activist and founder of the sports site FanSided, posted a tweet that associated the AR-15 rifle with 12 high-profile mass shootings in the last 10 years. Shortly after news broke of the shooting at a grocery store in Boulder, Twitter user Adam C. The events left 17 Americans dead.Ī central question in the debate has been whether to ban assault weapons, defined in the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban as certain semi-automatic firearms and high-capacity ammunition magazines. Just as it has for other widely publicized incidents in the United States, debate about gun control legislation has followed the news of mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado. The claim: AR-15 rifles were used in 12 recent mass shootings Machine guns registered with the ATF before 1986 can still be bought and sold with government approval.
Corrections & clarifications: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referenced the legality of machine guns in the United States.
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