The shooter, identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Pennsylvania resident Thomas Matthew Crooks, used an "AR-style 556 rifle" during the shooting, the bureau reportedly said on a call with reporters Sunday.
That places the rifle in the same family as the AR-15 and its many offshoots, one of which was used in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown in 2012.
The weapon used Saturday was likely purchased by Crook's father, officials said, though they are still determining how he got it.
While much is still not publicly known about the rifle Crook used and how it came into his possession, experts who spoke with CT Insider said Connecticut has much stricter laws around similar weapons.
"In Pennsylvania, an 18-year-old can legally buy an assault weapon, can carry it around in public, fully loaded, can have a large capacity magazine. All of that's legal," said former Democratic state Sen. Michael Lawlor, using a controversial term for the AR-15 and similar civilian versions of military-style rifles.
"None of that's legal here in Connecticut," he added.
'America's Rifle'
The Armalite weapons company first developed the Armalite Rifle 15 — or AR-15, as it's come to be known — for the U.S. Army, according to a history once on the company's website.
Armalite sold the design to the Connecticut company Colt in 1959. Colt sold a fully automatic version called the M-16 to the U.S. military, and, in 1964, marketed a semi-automatic version called the AR-15 to the public.
This is where a key distinction comes in that often gets muddied in public debates over these rifles.
Weapons that aren't automatic, like the bolt-action rifles often used for hunting, have to be cocked after they're fired to load a new round in the chamber.
Semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 load a new round automatically after one is fired, so the user doesn't have to cock the weapon each time they pull the trigger. But unlike fully-automatic weapons, semi-automatics only fire once when the trigger is pulled.
By contrast, if you hold down the trigger on a fully automatic weapon — often called a "machine gun" — it will fire until either you let go of the trigger or it runs out of bullets.
Civilian ownership of fully automatic weapons has been tightly controlled in the U.S. for decades. But semi-automatic weapons, including semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 and its clones, are widely available under federal law.
Since Colt first introduced it to the commercial market, the AR-15 and its many clones — all often colloquially referred to as AR-15s now — have become widely popular.
Today, the rifles can range from relatively cheap to incredibly expensive — from the low hundreds of dollars to the thousands. They're also very customizable, which has made them popular among gun enthusiasts — so much so that in 2016, the National Rifle Association called the AR-15 "America's rifle."
A Tragic History
While AR-15 style rifles have become popular with many hunters, sport shooters and collectors — as well as for self-defense — they have also developed a dark reputation.
In 1994, Congress banned certain semi-automatic weapons that accepted detachable magazines and had certain features like a folding stock or a pistol grip that, critics said, made them more lethal.
But Congress let the "assault weapons ban," as it's known, expire in 2004.
In the two decades since, AR-15 style rifles, in particular, have come to be associated with mass shootings where a lone gunman, or a small group, kills many people at once, often in a public place.
Not all mass shooters have chosen AR-style rifles. The student who killed 33 people at Virginia Tech in 2007, for example, used two handguns. In fact, a 2021 study found that only about a quarter of mass shootings — defined as public shootings that kill four or more people, not including the perpetrator — involved assault rifles.
However, AR-15 variants have cropped up in mass shootings with alarming regularity — including the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and Parkland, Florida.
Then, there's Sandy Hook Elementary School, where the shooter used an AR-15 style rifle manufactured by Bushmaster that was purchased by his mother to kill 20 children and six adults; he also killed his mother and himself.
New Laws and An Old Debate
In Connecticut, lawmakers have tightened the state's laws around so-called assault weapons several times since 1993, Lawlor said — including in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting.
"The gun manufacturers — like Remington, which made the Bushmaster and marketed it as legal in Connecticut so the guy's mother could buy it and give it to him — you're constantly fighting against that," Lawlor said.
Connecticut tightened those restrictions further last year as part of a broader law meant to address a spike in gun violence during the pandemic. The vote on the measure split largely along party lines, with Democrats supporting it and Republicans opposed.
Federal lawmakers passed enhanced background checks for anyone under 21 who tries to buy a gun in 2022 after the deadly shooting in Uvalde that left 22 dead, including the shooter.
But a federal assault weapons ban remains a white whale for gun control advocates.
In the wake of Saturday's shooting, many renewed their calls for a new federal ban.
At an unrelated press conference in New Haven on Monday, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D- Conn., was asked about the prospect of new gun control efforts in Washington.
"Those of us who are in Connecticut witnessed horror at Sandy Hook. And I can't even mention Sandy Hook without tears," DeLauro said.
DeLauro went on to express her hope for a new ban on military style weapons and other gun control laws.
"I've been clear about my position. Let's ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Let's have background checks, red flag laws and Ethan's Law that was passed in Connecticut," she said, referencing a state law signed in 2019 that increased gun storage requirements.
"We have now gotten to an issue of public health," DeLauro added.
State Rep. Craig Fishbein, R- Wallingford, dismissed the idea of a national ban on AR-15 style weapons, laying the blame for the shooting instead on what he called the "incendiary, hateful, violent" campaign rhetoric of President Joe Biden and other Democrats.
"The gun didn't shoot itself," said Fishbein, a gun owner who co-chairs the legislature's Judiciary Committee. "Perhaps those that denigrate firearms should focus their attention on the incendiary, hateful, violent comments of President Biden and others as the source of this tragedy."
As for the state's current ban on AR-style rifles? Fishbein said he's against it.
"I don't think the assault weapon ban prevents anything," the lawmaker said.
Asked for comment, the National Shooting Sports Foundation — the firearms industry's trade group, which is headquartered in Shelton — directed CT Insider to a statement on its website condemning Saturday's attempted assassination, which it called the "criminal misuse of a firearm."
"NSSF is committed to the bedrock principle that a society must engage in political discourse that embraces respect for our differences and resolves disagreements by making voices heard at the ballot box, free of the threat of violence regardless of political affiliation," it read, in part.
The statement did not mention the prospect of new gun control legislation.
Others called on federal lawmakers to follow Connecticut's lead in banning the sale of AR-15 style rifles and other military style weapons.
"Obviously, we need a national assault weapons ban," said Melissa Kane, board chair and interim executive director of the gun control advocacy group CT Against Gun Violence.
Kane said she doesn't believe a ban like the one in Connecticut infringes on the right to bear arms, as laid out in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In fact, Kane said, too absolute an interpretation of the Second Amendment can take other rights away from members of the public — like the right to safely attend a political rally.
"It's a perverse definition of the Second Amendment that ends up infringing on people's freedoms," Kane said.
In a statement Monday, the gun control advocacy group Newtown Action Alliance called for immediate passage of a federal assault weapons ban, along with a state-level ban in Pennsylvania, where Saturday's rally took place.
"Assault weapons are a threat to all elected leaders, politicians, school children, church parishioners, movie and concert goers, shoppers and other Americans," the group's chairwoman, Po Murray, said in an email.
(c)2024 The Hour (Norwalk, Conn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
