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calendar_today17-05-2007 13:35:19

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Luke Hoyer, the 15-year-old son of Gena and Tom, was one of 17 shot dead at his Parkland, Florida high school in 2018.

“We’re never going to get to see what Luke would have grown into,” Tom says. “I think he would have been a fantastic young man”

Luke Hoyer, the 15-year-old son of Gena and Tom, was one of 17 shot dead at his Parkland, Florida high school in 2018. “We’re never going to get to see what Luke would have grown into,” Tom says. “I think he would have been a fantastic young man”
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The Parkland killer was armed with an AR-15 style rifle, first created by the small-arms manufacturer Armalite in 1957 for the US military.

In recent years, the industry has been pushing sales of “modern sporting rifles” to civilians; the AR-15 is America’s best-selling

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“It’s a gun designed to create maximum damage — and it does,” says Tom, a former healthcare executive. “When they hit the body, they can sometimes explode into a thousand pieces of metal, looking like snow on the x-ray”

“It’s a gun designed to create maximum damage — and it does,” says Tom, a former healthcare executive. “When they hit the body, they can sometimes explode into a thousand pieces of metal, looking like snow on the x-ray”
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Next week marks the tenth anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which a 20-year-old with an AR-15 style rifle shot dead 20 six and seven-year-olds and their six teachers at their school in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012

Next week marks the tenth anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which a 20-year-old with an AR-15 style rifle shot dead 20 six and seven-year-olds and their six teachers at their school in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012
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In May of this year, 10 people were murdered with an AR-15 in a Buffalo, New York supermarket. Two weeks later, a similar weapon was used to kill 19 pupils and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas

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Less than a month ago, five people were murdered and a further 25 injured in an attack on a Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ nightclub — also involving an AR-15 style rifle

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These horrifying acts of violence have had little impact on the business. Gun sales have never been higher. Manufacturers are posting record profits: $280m last year for Sturm, Ruger & Company; more than $1bn for Smith & Wesson

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Efforts to ban assault weapons like the AR-15 have been repeatedly thwarted by the extraordinary lobbying power of the National Rifle Association, which receives millions in sponsorship deals with gun manufacturers. The NRA has branded the AR-15 “America’s gun”

Efforts to ban assault weapons like the AR-15 have been repeatedly thwarted by the extraordinary lobbying power of the National Rifle Association, which receives millions in sponsorship deals with gun manufacturers. The NRA has branded the AR-15 “America’s gun”
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Ryan Busse, a former gun industry executive, resigned from Kimber, a pistol manufacturer, in despair over the growing civilian market for weapons of war.

“I told my wife, ‘I can’t take this shit any more,’ ” he says. “They’ve made buying these guns seem patriotic”

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Manufacturers could not believe their luck when Congress passed a law in 2005 shielding them from liability for unlawful use of their weapons.

Busse recalls what one friend in the industry told him after the signing: “Those f***ing Democrats can’t touch us now”

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