A lawsuit filed against Daniel Defense and Oasis Outback gun store suggests AR-15 rifles carry a special appeal because they are “accurate every time,” even when the attacker has no “previous weapons training or experience.”
The suit, Camacho v. Uvalde School District, which also names Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and Firequest International, Inc., as defendants, was filed on September 28, 2022.
An amended complaint, filed December 29, 2022, contains new language on AR-15s, including the claims about their accuracy, even in the hands of firearm novices who wish to carry out high-profile shootings: “AR-15s are user friendly, precise, and accurate every time. The mass shooter does not need any previous weapons training or experience at all to use the rifle and make the kills.”
The amended complaint also claimed there were 691 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2021, 610 in 2020, and 417 in 2019.
The plaintiffs reach these misleading numbers for mass shootings by relying on the Gun Violence Archive, a database that uses media reports and similar sources to compile a list of shootings in the United States. The Gun Violence Archive does not use the standard definition for mass shootings, derived from the FBI, which is four people or more killed in one incident by one gunman. Instead, the Gun Violence Archive counts shootings in which four or more people were wounded as a mass shooting. This means the Gun Violence Archive’s mass shooting database counts numerous drive-by shootings, gang violence, and other criminal actions, as mass shootings.
(On April 15, 2021, the Rand Corporation observed that the standard for “mass shootings” was derived from the FBI’s 1980s definition of a “mass murderer” as an individual who “kills four or more people in a single incident [not including himself].” Therefore, four or more deaths in a single incident by a single gunman was the working definition of a “mass shooting.”)
In addition to Gun Violence Archive, the amended complaint also relies on data from Mike Bloomberg-affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety.
On December 13, 2014, Breitbart News examined Everytown for Gun Safety’s “100 School Shootings,” which they claimed had occurred over the previous year. Breitbart discovered that the list contained non-school shootings, shootings that did not occur, and accidental discharges of firearms that were legally possessed on campus.
The amended complaint is for the lawsuit Camacho v. Uvalde School District, No. 2:22-cv-48, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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