Last week, the Texas Tribune published a clear-eyed analysis of AR-15 style rifles, the weapon of choice for the shooters at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Drawing from our mass shootings database, the Tribune explains that the popularity of the rifle has soared in recent years. While it's not the only gun capable of killing many people in a minute time frame, it is uniquely frightening, even for trained law enforcement officers. Here's some evidence to that point: Not only were police in Uvalde armed with AR-15s, but they were trained to use them. The shooter was not. Still, the officers refused to enter the classroom. "We weren’t equipped to make entry into that room without several casualties,” Uvalde Police Department Detective Louis Landry said, according to the Tribune. “Once we found out it was a rifle he was using, it was a different game plan we would have had to come up with."
It's unclear what sort of weapon a 28-year-old woman allegedly used when she opened fire at a private Christian school in Nashville this morning, killing three children and three staff members. But the frequent use of AR-15's to carry out so many of these horrific shootings instantly came to my mind when learning of the latest tragedy. The Tribune story suggests a number of solutions for confronting our mass shooting epidemic, from increasing police training to raising the age to purchase an AR-15 in some states from 18 to 21. At this point, it seems obvious that anything would be better than nothing.
—Abigail Weinberg