The debate on firearms in the United States is back on the table, during a rally by American President Joe Biden. On Tuesday, July 16, the outgoing head of state and Democratic candidate for the November presidential election organized in Las Vegas his first political rally since the assassination attempt against his Republican rival, Donald Trump.
Four days earlier, on Saturday, July 13, the former American president was injured in the right ear by gunfire during a Republican Party rally in Pennsylvania. A shooting that left one dead and two injured. While Joe Biden said yesterday that he was “relieved” that his Republican rival was okay, he also called for a lowering of the temperature in an America on edge. In particular, by proposing to ban the type of weapon used by the shooter who targeted Donald Trump: the AR-15 automatic rifle.
An omnipresent weapon of war
In his speech, the 81-year-old American president thus appealed to his supporters: “Help me rid the streets of America of these weapons of war. An AR-15 was used in the shooting of Donald Trump… It is time to eliminate them,” Joe Biden said on Tuesday. This call echoes the many criticisms leveled against this model of automatic weapon. Whether at Sandy Hook in 2012, Las Vegas in 2017, Parkland in 2018 or Uvalde in 2022, this lightweight assault rifle using high-capacity ammunition magazines has been omnipresent in the deadly shootings of recent years in the United States.
And for good reason: the AR-15 is “the best-selling rifle in the United States, according to industry figures. […] “About one in 20 Americans owns one,” the American daily recently pointed out. Washington Post in survey published at the end of March on this firearm model. Since its creation in the 1950s by the American company ArmaLite, the Washington Post states that “nearly every major gun manufacturer now produces its own version of the weapon, which dominates the walls and websites of gun dealers.” Based on industry figures, the American media outlet estimates that “there are about 20 million AR-15s in circulation.”
The survey focuses on the profile and reasons that push buyers to equip themselves with this weapon of war. Results: among the 400 AR-15 owners surveyed, the vast majority are men (81%), white (74%), aged 40 to 65 (71%) and living in a large city or residential suburb (72%). Above all, they explain the reasons that pushed them to arm themselves with this automatic rifle. For a third of them, it meets a need for “self-defense” to “protect their home”, their family or themselves, while 30% mention competitive shooting or recreational use.
A broader debate on access to weapons
For 12% of them, however, the reason is much simpler: “Because I can”. Thus, some AR-15 buyers want to exercise their right to own a weapon in the United States, guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the American Constitution. Therefore, the call by American President Joe Biden to ban the AR-15 brings back into the debate one of the major themes of the Democratic Party: strengthening control of the sale of firearms to reduce violence in the United States.
According to the American NGO Gun Violence Archive, more than 40,000 people died by gunfire in the United States in 2022, more than half of them by suicide. In late June, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who was tasked by the Democratic president with preventing public health issues, stressed that gun violence was a “public health crisis” that threatened the “health and well-being” of Americans.
And the problem has gone beyond the US borders: in parallel with Joe Biden’s statement on Tuesday, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, called on Donald Trump and his Democratic rival to regulate these arms sales, stating that three-quarters of the 50,000 weapons seized under his mandate over the past six years came from the US state of Texas.
The Mexican head of state believes that “if the two candidates signed a compromise to regulate arms sales, it would be an act well received by the Americans.” A hope that seems unrealistic for the moment, while Republican elected officials almost systematically oppose restrictions on firearms.