In Florida, you can walk out of a gun shop with an assault rifle. Want a handgun? You鈥檒l need to wait three days before being allowed to take it home.
Early Sunday, 29-year-old in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and injuring 53 in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The weapons Mateen used 鈥� a semi-automatic Sig Sauer MCX military-style rifle and a 9mm Glock pistol 鈥� were purchased legally just days before the massacre.
鈥淎n evil person came in here and legally purchased two firearms from us,鈥� Edward Henson, owner of the St. Lucie Shooting Center, told media in a Monday press conference. 鈥淚f he hadn鈥檛 purchased them from us, I鈥檓 sure he would have got them from another local gun store in the area.鈥�
A Florida resident with no criminal record, Mateen was able to buy both weapons without issue from the shop, which is a short drive from his home. The two terrorism-related would not have registered during a mandatory background check because both investigations were closed due to lack of evidence.
鈥淭his man held multiple security licenses,鈥� Henson, a retired NYPD officer, said. 鈥淗e had an armed and an unarmed licence. He passed a background check that every single person that purchases a firearm in the state of Florida undergoes.鈥�
Florida has some of the . The Sunshine State does not require people to hold a licence to buy or possess firearms, and guns do not have to be registered. There are also no limits on how many firearms you can buy at a time.
Although there鈥檚 a mandatory waiting period of three days between purchasing and acquiring a handgun, any weapon designed to be used with two hands 鈥� including military-style assault rifles 鈥� can be taken home on the day of purchase. Thus, to get your hands on a gun in the state, all you need to do is fill out an ID form and pass a criminal background check. If you鈥檙e buying a gun privately, a background check isn鈥檛 required.
Assault rifles like the MCX and AR-15 were federally banned between 1994 and 2004, when aggressive lobbying from the National Rifle Association saw the ban to expire. Although fully automatic weapons remain illegal, semi-automatic assault rifles like the AR-15 are incredible popular in the U.S. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), roughly 5 to 10 million AR-15s are owned in the country. Only seven states ban them.
A variant of the fully automatic M16 assault rifle, which came to prominence during the Vietnam War, the AR-15 is semi-automatic, which means the trigger must be pulled each time you want to fire a shot. The weapon Mateen used was modelled after the AR-15.
The military-style rifle has been used in multiple mass shootings in recent years, including the , that claimed 14 lives and the in Newton, Conn. After calls to ban the rifle were made in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, AR-15 sales spiked across the United States.
