The school massacre in Nashville joins a long list of gun attacks in the United States.
Above all, the AR15 assault rifle is again in focus.
Nashville - Another gun attack on a school rocks the United States.
Six people died in the hail of bullets, including three nine-year-old children.
Police shot dead the attacker, believed to be a transgender man, on the spot, bringing the death toll to seven.
It didn't take long for the news from Nashville, Tennessee to reach the capital, Washington DC.
US President Joe Biden appeared in front of the cameras in the White House to once again call for tougher gun laws in the United States.
gun violence.
What happened to him at Christian school was "every family's worst nightmare," Biden said.
AR15 assault rifles were again used in the attack.
It is precisely these weapons that the Democrats want to ban in the USA.
But the Republicans reject any tightening of the gun law.
"I again urge Congress to pass my ban on assault rifles.
It's time we started making strides," Biden said at a meeting with middle-class officials at the White House.
Shooting sprees in the USA - AR15 assault rifle is a bestseller
The assault rifle with the designation AR15 was initially considered unpopular, especially among connoisseurs.
According to Politico,
the powerful gun lobby organization NRA (National Rifle Association) focused
more on the promotion of classic hunting rifles and handguns.
The AR15 was considered useless for hunting and oversized for defense.
But in the course of an increasingly extreme polarization, a perceived increasing threat and the resulting increase in armament, the AR15 became the absolute bestseller in the weapons industry.
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Also very popular with members of the far-right Boogalo movement: AR15 assault rifles.
(archive image)
© John C. Clark via www.imago-images.de
According to the Washington Post,
the semi-automatic assault rifle is
now the best-selling rifle in the United States.
There is said to be at least one AR15 in 16 million homes across the country.
Almost every manufacturer now produces an assault rifle of this type.
According to an article in the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
, two-thirds of all gun purchases in the US in 2016 included an AR15.
The image of the assault rifle can be found on T-shirts, they are available as key rings and table lighters.
A Republican representative from the US state of Alabama introduced legislation in February 2023 that would ennoble the AR15 as "America's national weapon".
As the news portal
Newsweek
reports, even some Republican members of the US House of Representatives like to wear a pin in the shape of an assault rifle.
The AR15 is also particularly popular with people who want to attack schools and shoot children.
It is also used in terrorist attacks and other killing sprees.
According to
the New York Times
and
Washington Post,
attackers used the assault rifle in 10 of the 17 deadliest shootings and terrorist attacks since 2012.
Shooting sprees in the US using AR15 assault rifles
2012:
Aurora, Colorado
: A man armed with an AR15 enters a movie theater, killing 12 people.
2012:
Newtown, Connecticut
: An elementary school shooting kills 28 people, including 20 children.
The perpetrator, armed among other things with an AR15 assault rifle, then shoots himself.
2015:
San Bernadino, California
: In a terrorist attack, two assassins kill 14 people with AR15 assault rifles, among other things.
2017:
Sutherland Springs, Texas
: A man entered a Baptist church with an AR15 and shot dead 26 people.
2017:
Las Vegas, Nevada
: A 64-year-old man opened fire on people attending a music festival from a hotel room.
60 people die.
In total, the man had 24 firearms in his suite, including an AR15 semi-automatic assault rifle.
2018:
Parkland, Florida
: A 19-year-old man shot dead 14 students and three adults at a school - armed with an AR15.
2018:
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
: An attacker kills 11 people in a synagogue in an anti-Semitic terrorist attack, most with his Colt AR15.
2021:
Boulder, Colorado
: Ten people die in a supermarket shooting.
Murder weapon: a Ruger AR15.
2022:
Uvalde, Texas
: At an elementary school, an 18-year-old boy kills 21 people, including 19 children, with a Daniel Defense AR15.
2022:
Buffalo, New York
: An 18-year-old boy shoots dead ten people in a supermarket armed with a Bushmaster AR15.
But even if in Australia, for example, a rampage in 1995 that killed 35 people led the conservative government to ban all assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons within a few weeks, that doesn't mean much for the USA.
In 2023 alone, the authorities counted 133 so-called "mass shootings" - i.e. firearm attacks in which at least four people were hit (injured or killed).
141 people died and 365 were injured.
Still, there is little sign that Republicans are prepared to back down from their position and seriously tighten gun laws in the US.
(Daniel Dillman)
List of rubrics: © John C. Clark via www.imago-images.de