2023-04-17 01:35:00
The annual meeting of the National Rifle Association (NRA) of the United States kicked off this weekend after two mass shootings. And it coincided with another one.
Attacks in Nashville and Louisville, Kentucky – which have killed 11 people in the past two weeks – sparked nationwide protests and demands to ban military-style rifles.
To this was added another shooting this same Saturday in the middle of a 16th birthday party in the state of Alabama, which left at least 4 dead.
But in the NRA conference room, business is booming. There were hundreds of booths dedicated to customizing the very weapon that has become the calling card of mass shooters: the AR-15.
Affordable, customizable, lightweight and deadly, the rifle has become a lightning rod in America’s raging culture war over guns.
As the courts debate the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms, and whether to expand or restrict gun ownership rights, the rise of the AR-15 is a flash point for both sides.
But the country has not reached this moment by chance, say experts and insiders in the arms industry. Here’s how millions of Americans now embrace the AR-15.
“I’m a gun enthusiast“
Colion Noir, one of the NRA’s most prominent black commentators, said the first time he fired a gun he was terrified. But by the second shot, he had fallen in love with the power he felt “containing an explosion” in the palm of his hand.
“I’m a gun enthusiast”, said. “I am what I myself have called a ammo–sexual [en referencia al amor por la munición]”.
Like millions of Americans, Noir started out shooting pistols. Over time he opted for a new weapon: the AR-15.
“If you think about buying a new car, for whatever reason, you keep seeing that car everywhere,” he said of his growing love of guns. “That’s more or less what happened.”
And maybe that’s because the AR-15, and rifles like it, are in fact everywhere in America.
Some US lawmakers proudly wear his image pinned to their hearts; others have proposed a bill to officially make the rifle the “national weapon” of the United States.
But the rise in popularity of the AR-15 is also inexorably linked to the rise in mass shootings in the United States.
The media have dubbed the rifle the “weapon of choice for mass shooters” and the AR-15, or a similar weapon, has been used in at least 100 shootings in which four or more victims were injured or killed in the past decade, according to data collected by the Gun Violence Archive.
Although research shows that handguns are implicated in the majority of firearm deaths in the United States, AR-15 rifles were used in the Sandy Hook, Parkland, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, the Pulse nightclub, Uvalde, Nashville’s Covenant School and, this week, at the Old National Bank in Louisville.
None of this is lost on Noir, who claims to understand why some Americans have come to fear the rifle.
But, according to him, the semi-automatic firepower that turns back anti-gun protesters is the same one that draws a loyal following among AR-15 owners.
“I fully understand why some people may feel a certain amount of negativity toward an AR-15,” he said. “But the Founding Fathers used their rifles to defend this country. In that sense, I think it was inevitable that the AR-15 would become ‘America’s rifle.'”
A change in gun culture
Not long ago, the idea of millions of civilians owning a military-grade rifle was unthinkable even for industry experts.
Ryan Busse was a top executive at a firearms company in the early 2000s. Back then, he said, AR-15s and other military-style “tactical” weapons were banished to the back aisles of trade shows. sector and were only accessible to law enforcement and former military personnel.
“The rest of the industry would not allow such things to be displayed in the main, tasteful and respectable part of the fair,” he said.
Between 1994 and 2004, a federal law prohibited the manufacture, transfer, and possession of military-grade weapons for civilian use.
Although US President Joe Biden has pointed to that legislation – passed when he was a senator – as one of the reasons why there used to be fewer mass shootings in the US, it did not completely limit gun ownership.
Guns already owned were not affected, and some forms of semi-automatic rifles continued to be allowed on the market.
More than by a concrete law, Busse affirmed that the industry’s decision to avoid tactical weapons was because there was a “social stigma” around them since the leaders agreed that firearms should be in the hands of trained soldiers and police.
“I have never had one. For me, the weapons have a very clear purpose. They are tactical weapons of war and I did not intend to embark on a planned offensive military action,” he said.
But over time, that stigma began to change, and a new era began with the War on Terror.
“I think that the defining event that defines gun culture today, even though people may not recognize it, is actually 9/11“says AJ Somerset, a former Canadian soldier and journalist who has spent much of his career documenting the firearms industry.
Back home, Americans tuning in to the nightly news watched M-16-wielding soldiers rushing into battle.
The rifle began to appear in movies, television shows, and video games about the war. And soldiers coming home used to buy the AR-15 so they would have a civilian model of the rifle they used in combat.
According to the National Shooting and Sports Foundation, Between 2002 and 2012, US rifle production grew by more than and 160%.
“It’s hard for any American citizen to oppose something that carries the flag,” Busse says.
After more than 20 years in the industry, he said he had had enough. Since then, he has become an adviser to lawmakers and organizations trying to turn the tide on gun violence in the United States.
Although the industry used to value responsibility and try to limit access to weapons like the AR-15, those principles eventually “collapsed.”
“My confidence and my naivety were also broken,” he confessed.
fear marketing
Experts say the cultural shift toward the AR-15 was accelerated by the expiration of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 2004 and the approval of a new law that granted immunity to the firearms industry if they were used illegally.
The Legal Trade in Arms Protection Act was the NRA’s top legislative priority during the Bush administration, said Robert Spitzer, a SUNY Cortland professor and author of several books on the US gun control debate.
“(The law) provides legal immunity to arms sellers, arms dealers, arms manufacturers and those who transport arms, to protect them from lawsuits based on the damage their weapons cause“, he claimed.
After the law was signed in 2005, Busse said he sensed a palpable sense of relief — and impunity — in boardrooms and at industry meetings.
“It was a shield”, he claimed. I jokingly say it’s like throwing a bunch of cocaine and kegs of beer at a frat party and saying, “Behave yourself.”
Gun manufacturers began to market military-style weapons and equipment, such as bulletproof vests and high-capacity magazines, to the public.
Industry titans like Sturm, Ruger & Co have added the AR-15 to their range of pistols and revolvers.
For some, the rifle became a symbol of masculinity.. In 2012, the manufacturer Bushmaster launched an ad campaign promising buyers to “reissue your man’s card” with every AR-15 purchased.
Meanwhile, technological advances have accelerated the rifle’s capabilities beyond those of the military M-16, Busse said, making it more deadly.
The United States is no longer waging a “war on terror.” However, fear of domestic crime and increased political polarization have led to an increasing emphasis on self-protection.
“Actually, we don’t think so much about guns as how we feel about them“says Somerset, a journalist and former soldier.
So, along with the Second Amendment, is how we’ve gotten to a point where, despite nearly two-thirds of Americans saying they’re “dissatisfied with current gun laws,” lawmakers have had a hard time passing a new one. banning assault weapons, even after deadly shootings like those in Nashville and Kentucky.
“This kind of weird concoction has been created that is not under anyone’s control,” Somerset said.
“It’s kind of frankenstein monster that it’s been created out of all these pieces of American character and that it’s teetering wildly.”
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