A disproportionate variety of America’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred within the final decade, and in that point, gun producers raked in additional than $1.7 billion in income from assault weapon gross sales, a congressional investigation present in a report printed Wednesday.
The probe into income from AR-15-style weapons was carried out by the Home Committee on Oversight and Reform within the wake of the capturing at Robb Elementary Faculty in Uvalde, Texas, the place a gunman massacred 19 youngsters and two lecturers in Could.
“How a lot are the lives of America’s youngsters, lecturers, mother and father, and households price to gun producers?” the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), mentioned in an announcement launched with Wednesday’s report, which discovered that the nation’s 5 main gun producers made a minimum of $1.7 billion promoting lots of of hundreds of military-style assault weapons to civilians from 2012 via 2021.
Of the 30 deadliest mass shootings in trendy U.S. historical past, 16 occurred within the final decade.
“These corporations are promoting the weapon of alternative for mass murderers who terrorize younger youngsters in school, seek out worshippers at church buildings and synagogues, and slaughter households on the Fourth of July,” Maloney continued. “Briefly, the gun trade is profiting off the blood of harmless Individuals.”
The committee requested for gross sales information from Daniel Protection; Smith & Wesson; Sturm, Ruger & Co.; Sig Sauer; and Bushmaster.
Sig Sauer, the maker of the weapons used within the Las Vegas music competition capturing in 2017 and the Orlando evening membership capturing in 2016 ― the 2 deadliest mass shootings in U.S. historical past ― refused to offer gross sales information, the report mentioned, revealing solely that AR-15-style rifles make up round 3% of its complete income. Bushmaster, whose weapons have been used within the latest Buffalo, New York, grocery retailer capturing and the Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty capturing in 2012, solely supplied gross sales information from 2021.
The report additionally discovered a disturbing uptick in such gun gross sales lately. Daniel Protection’s income from military-grade rifles tripled from $40 million in 2019 to greater than $120 million in 2021. Ruger’s gross earnings from such weapons almost additionally tripled throughout that very same time, leaping from $39 million to over $103 million. Smith & Wesson’s income from all lengthy weapons, a class that features AR-15-style weapons, greater than doubled in that point span from $108 million to $253 million.
That matches with what earlier stories have discovered about gun gross sales within the wake of mass shootings. As a substitute of agreeing to authorities intervention to forestall weapons from entering into the palms of harmful people, Wednesday’s report mentioned, producers have profited by “advertising lethal weapons as a manner for younger males to show their manliness.”
Bushmaster advertisements the committee obtained included captions saying, “Think about your man card reissued,” and, “Your standing on the prime of the testosterone meals chain is now irrevocable.” Smith & Wesson ran advertisements urging clients to “kick brass” and expertise “pure adrenaline” with its weapons, which the committee argued have clear “violent undertones.”
Producers have additionally straight and not directly marketed to white supremacists, the report argued. One 2017 catalogue from Daniel Protection featured a shooter with a tattoo of the Valknot, a Norse image that’s been appropriated by white supremacists.
The report was launched the identical day the CEOs of Daniel Protection, whose model of the AR-15 was used within the Uvalde capturing, and Ruger testified earlier than the Home committee. Daniel Protection chief govt Marty Daniel argued earlier than the committee that “our nation’s response must focus not on the kind of gun however on the kind of individuals who're more likely to commit mass shootings,” including that there’s been “an erosion of private duty in our nation and in our tradition.”
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