Violence Policy Center

The Violence Policy Center (VPC) is an American nonprofit organization that works to prevent gun death and injury through research, education, and advocacy.

2001

 * Date: October 16, 1991 Location: Luby's Cafeteria, Killeen, Texas Alleged Shooter: George Hennard People Killed: 24 (shooter committed suicide) People Injured: 20 Firearm(s): Ruger P-89 9mm pistol and a Glock 9mm pistol Circumstances Hennard, who had a history of mental instability and was described by friends and family as paranoid and troubled, drove his pickup truck through the window of a Luby's Cafeteria restaurant and opened fire, killing 23 people and wounding 20 others, then killed himself. How Firearm(s) Acquired Both guns were purchased legally from Mike's Gun Shop in February and March of 1991 in Henderson, Nevada. Although he had a history of mental illness, Hennard was never committed by court order to a mental health institution. Federal law prohibits firearms purchases only by people who have been committed to a mental health facility under court order.

2007

 * The two handguns used in the Virginia Tech shooting—a 9mm Glock 19 pistol, and a 22 caliber Walther P22 pistol—stand as stark examples of the trend toward increased lethality that defines today’s gun industry. Since the mid-1980s, the gun industry has embraced increased firepower and capacity to resell the shrinking base of gun buyers in America. In the 1980s, a very significant shift in gun design and marketing occurred: high-capacity semiautomatic pistols became the dominant product line. Formerly, the most popular handgun design was the revolver, most often containing six shots. In 1980, semiautomatic pistols accounted for only 32 percent of the 2.3 million handguns produced in America. The majority were revolvers. By 1991 this number had reversed itself with semiautomatic pistols accounting for 74 percent of the 1.8 million handguns produced that year.

2011

 * Today's NRA is a virtual subsidiary of the gun industry. While the NRA portrays itself as protecting the 'freedom' of individual gun owners, it's actually working to protect the freedom of the gun industry to manufacture and sell virtually any weapon or accessory.
 * Josh Sugarmann, April 13, 2011


 * The high-capacity  Glock  pistol  owned  by  Norway  mass  murderer Anders Behring Breivik stands  as  a  stark  example  of  the  gun  industry’s  marketing  of  increased lethality.  Since the mid-1980s,  increased firepower and capacity have defined the products of the gun industry—of both U.S. and foreign manufacture. Glock pistols have been part of the arsenals of the some of the most infamous mass shooters in the United States, including the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting which left 33 dead and 17 wounded and, more recently, the attack in January 2011 in Tucson, AZ, by Jared Loughner which left six dead and 13 wounded—including U.S. Representative Gabrielle  Giffords (D-AZ). Oklahoma  City  bomber Timothy McVeigh was illegally carrying a 45 caliber Glock pistol when he was stopped by law enforcement after the 1995 bombing for driving a car without  a license plate.


 * Who does the National Rifle Association represent? In its direct-mail solicitations and public statements, the NRA presents itself as the uncompromising voice of the American gun owner. But new research reveals that since 2005 the NRA has received millions of dollars from the gun industry.  The means by which the industry helps fund the NRA vary:  from million-dollar industry grants to a program that rounds up gun store customers’ purchases to the nearest dollar with the difference going to the NRA—including a contribution from a soon-to-be  mass  shooter  buying  ammunition. Corporate  contributors  to the  NRA  come  from  every  sector  of  the  firearms  industry, including:  manufacturers of handguns, rifles, shotguns, assault weapons, and high-capacity ammunition magazines; gun distributors and dealers; and, vendors of ammunition and other shooting-related products.  And they come from outside the firearms  industry—including Xe, the new name for the now-infamous Blackwater Worldwide... The depth and breadth of gun industry financial support for the National Rifle Association makes clear that the self-proclaimed “America’s oldest civil rights organization” is, in fact, the gun industry’s most high-profile trade association.  While the NRA works to portray itself as protecting the “freedoms” of its membership, it is, in fact protecting the gun industry’s freedom to manufacture virtually any gun or accessory it sees fit to produce.... The mutually dependent nature of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry explains the NRA’s unwillingness to compromise on even the most limited controls over firearms or related products (such as restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines) and its support of legislation that clearly favors gunmakers over gun owners (such as legislation limiting the legal rights of gun owners killed or injured by defective firearms).  The NRA claims that its positions are driven solely by a concern for the interests of gun owners, never mentioning its own financial stake in protecting the profits of its gun industry patrons.

2012

 * In America today—where virtually anyone with a credit card and a grudge can outfit their own personal army—mass shootings are as predictable as they are tragic. Just as predictably, those who celebrate this lethal shift—the NRA and its gun industry partners remain mute when families and communities suffer the consequences. And when attention fades, they'll once again resume their lethal trade, unless we stand together as Americans to stop them.
 * Violence Policy Center and others, July 20 2012


 * Holmes’s use of Smith & Wesson’s M&P15 assault rifle demonstrates the clear and present danger of a gun designed for war and ruthlessly marketed for profit to civilians. In early 2006, Smith & Wesson announced that it had begun shipping the first of its M&P15 rifles. The M&P (Military & Police) “tactical rifle” was the first long gun produced by a company that had been long known as a handgun manufacturer. According to Shooting Industry, the new rifle was “specifically engineered to meet the needs of global military and police personnel, as well as sporting shooters.” The handgun company’s turn to assault rifles was a stark example of the gun industry’s relentless militarization of the civilian market. By 2006, military-style semiautomatic assault rifles had become one of the mainstays of the civilian gun market. Smith & Wesson did not make rifles. But it had successfully marketed a line of M&P semiautomatic handguns to military, police, and civilian customers. Its executives decided to introduce their own line of Military & Police assault rifles. Based on the AR-15/M-16 design, these “tactical rifles” would be heavily pitched to civilians.


 * The money continued to roll in. On July 20, 2009, exactly three years to the day before the Aurora mass murder, Golden stated in an interview that a “category that has been extremely hot is tactical rifles, AR style tactical rifles.” On a June 2009 investors conference call, Golden enthused that “tactical rifles were up almost 200% versus the same period the year before. We have increased our capacity on that rifle.” The company was doing so well with its assault rifles that it decided to introduce a new variant in 22 caliber because the ammunition is much cheaper than the military-style ammunition used in the M&P15.

2018

 * Following news reports that the AR-15 style rifle used in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was a Smith & Wesson M&P15 assault rifle, the Violence Policy Center (VPC) today released Understanding the Smith & Wesson M&P15 Semiautomatic Assault Rifle. According to the VPC backgrounder, “The Smith & Wesson M&P15 assault rifle demonstrates the clear and present danger of a gun designed for war and ruthlessly marketed for profit to civilians.” The same model assault rifle was also used in an attack that left 12 dead at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in 2012 and in a mass shooting at a community center in San Bernardino, California in 2015 that left 14 dead.


 * In the wake of declining household gun ownership, it is no secret that the gun industry has focused on semiautomatic military-style assault weapons, most notably AR-15-type rifles, in its marketing and sales efforts. The target  markets  are  two-fold:  older  males  who  already  own  firearms  and  can  be enticed  into  purchasing  one  —  or  one  more  —  of  these  battlefield-derived  weapons;  young males, who although they lack interest in the traditional shooting sports such as hunting,  are  intrigued  by  what  one  gun  industry  trade  magazine  calls  the  “tactical  coolness factor.”


 * On December 14, 2012, a Bushmaster XM-15 was used by 20-year-old Adam Lanza to kill 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Less than five months after the Newtown shooting, the company’s leadership was honored by the National Rifle Association at the NRA’s annual meeting with other gun industry financial supporters who had “given gifts of cash totaling $1,000,000 or more.”


 * Remington Outdoor Company, formerly known as Freedom Group, is one of the largest gun manufacturers in the world and specializes in assault rifles and other military-style firearms. The company made the Bushmaster XM-15 assault rifle reportedly used at the Waffle House shooting in Nashville, Tennessee as well as  the  2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. An XM-15 was also used in the 2002 Washington, DC-area  sniper attacks.


 * The Smith & Wesson M&P15 assault rifle demonstrates the clear and present danger of a gun designed for war and ruthlessly marketed for profit to civilians. In early 2006, Smith & Wesson announced that it had begun shipping the first of its M&P15 rifles. The M&P (Military & Police) “tactical rifle” was the first long gun produced by a company that had been long known as a handgun manufacturer. According to Shooting Industry, the new rifle was “specifically engineered to meet the needs of global military and police personnel, as well as sporting shooters.” The handgun company’s turn to assault rifles was a stark example of the gun industry’s relentless militarization of the civilian market. By 2006, military-style semiautomatic assault rifles had become one of the mainstays of the civilian gun market. Smith & Wesson did not make rifles. But it had successfully marketed a line of M&P semiautomatic handguns to military, police, and civilian customers. Its executives decided to introduce their own line of Military & Police assault rifles. Based on the AR-15/M-16 design, these “tactical rifles” would be heavily pitched to civilians.


 * The distinctive “look” of assault weapons is not cosmetic. It is the visual result of specific functional design decisions. Military assault weapons were designed and developed for a specific military purpose — laying down a high volume of fire over a wide killing zone, also known as “hosing down” an area. The most significant assault weapon functional design features are: (1) ability to accept a high-capacity ammunition magazine, (2) a rear pistol or thumb-hole grip, and, (3) a forward grip or barrel shroud. Taken together, these are the design features that make possible the deadly and indiscriminate “spray-firing” for which assault weapons are designed. None of them are features of true hunting or sporting guns. Civilian semiautomatic assault weapons incorporate all of the functional design features that make assault weapons so deadly. They are arguably more deadly than military versions, because most experts agree that semiautomatic fire is more accurate than automatic fire. Although the gun lobby today argues that there is no such thing as civilian assault weapons, the industry, the National Rifle Association, and gun magazines enthusiastically described these civilian versions as “assault rifles,” “assault pistols,” and “military assault” weapons to boost civilian sales throughout the 1980s. The industry and its allies only began to use the semantic argument that a “true” assault weapon is a machine gun after civilian assault weapons turned up in large numbers in the hands of drug traffickers, criminal gangs, mass murderers, and other dangerous criminals.


 * The high‐capacity Glock pistol stands as a stark example of the gun industry’s marketing of increased lethality. Since the mid‐1980s, increased fire power and capacity have defined the products of the gun industry—of both U.S. and foreign manufacture. Glock Pistols and Mass Shooters Glock pistols have been part of the arsenals of the some of the most infamous mass shooters in the United States, including: the 2015 attack at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, that left nine dead; the 2011 attack at a Safeway in Tucson, Arizona, that left six dead and 13 wounded—including then‐U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords; and, the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting which left 33 dead and 17 wounded.


 * Examples of Mass Shootings in the United States Involving Glock Pistols Mass Shooting Incident Luby’s Cafeteria Killeen, Texas October 16, 1991 Shooter: George Hennard Casualties 24 dead (including shooter), 20 wounded Firearm(s) Glock 9mm pistol Sturm Ruger P‐89 9mm pistol  Mass Shooting Incident Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church Charleston, South Carolina June 17, 2015 Shooter: Dylann Roof Casualties 9 dead Firearm(s) Glock .45 Model 41 pistol  Mass Shooting Incident Safeway parking lot Tucson, Arizona January 8, 2011 Shooter: Jared Loughner Casualties 6 dead, 13 wounded Firearm(s) Glock 19 pistol  Mass Shooting Incident Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia April 16, 2007 Shooter: Seung‐Hui Cho Casualties 33 dead (including shooter), 17 wounded Firearm(s) Glock 19 pistol Walther P22 pistol