America’s Gun War: AR-15 Rifle Used in Donald Trump Shooting in Crossfires of Nation’s Arms Struggle… 24 MILLLION of Them in US

Thomas Matthew Crooks used an AR-15 in his attempt to assassinate Donald Trump over the weekend, and there are currently 24 million of these deadly semi-automatic weapons in the United States, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

The gun was designed in the 1950s and meant to be used on the battlefield but has been responsible for almost a quarter of the country’s mass shootings, including at a Uvalde elementary school in Texas in May 2022, in which 21 people – 19 of them children, were killed.

The semi-automatic rifle has grown in popularity since the ending of the Assault Weapons Ban in 2004. It’s also a cash cow for the country's $28 billion firearms industry.

In an interview with the Economic Times, Christian Heyne, chief programs and policy officer for Brady, America's leading gun violence prevention organization said: "The reason for America's relationship with the AR-15 is a question we have to be asking because these assault-style weapons, military-style in particular, are designed to be used exactly as they are being used: to kill."

Heyne said because Trump is now also a gun violence survivor, the organization hopes the Republican presidential nominee “recognizes that one of these weapons came within a mere inch of ending his life because of the ways in which we allow civilians unfettered access to firearms."

Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, and signed the Firearm Owners' Protection Act in 1986, banning new fully automatic rifles from being sold privately. Bill Clinton would go on to sign into law the assault weapons ban in 1994.

Heyne believes if there’s any hope of trying to bring in further reforms, now is the time.

However, the outlet noted that as the Republican National Convention continues this week, the only reference to gun policy in the GOP’s published platform is language that speaks of the “fundamental freedoms including freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the right to keep and bear arms.”

When a gunman in Las Vegas used multiple weapons with bump stocks attached to kill 58 people in 2017, then President Trump banned bump stocks. Last month, though, the Supreme Court struck down the ban.

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There has been one bipartisan gun reform law in recent years – the 2022 Safer Communities Act – in response to the Uvalde shooting, but despite 90 percent of Americans supporting reforms, there is still no movement on implementing an assault weapons ban or even universal background checks.

Following the attempt on Trump’s life though, Heyne said: "Our number one hope would be that we hear a clear message from Trump and all Republicans at the convention: we can differ on political philosophy — but we have to rely on the ballot box, not the bullet box."