Fact Check: New Mexico’s Democrat Gov. Claims an AR-15 Is an ‘Automatic Weapon’

CLAIM: During Friday’s airing of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) claimed an AR-15 rifle is an “automatic weapon.”

VERDICT: False. AR-15s are semiautomatic firearms.

Grisham made her comments during a discussion of the May 16, 2023, Farmington, New Mexico, shooting that left three people dead.

CNN identified the Farmington gunman as an 18-year-old male and noted his family had worried about his mental health. He used three different guns in the attack and was ultimately killed by police.

One of the guns was an AR-15, which Grisham described as an “automatic weapon.” She said:

Frankly, no one that isn’t in the military — this is a weapon of war — or a trained police department, in my view, no one in America who isn’t in one of those two situations should own an automatic weapon. There is no reason to own one of those.

Contrary to Grisham’s assertion, AR-15s are semiautomatic firearms. They fire one round, and one round only, per trigger pull.
The AR-15 has a safety on the lower that allows the owner of the gun to switch between “safe” and “fire.” Automatic weapons, on the other hand, have a select fire switch that allows the owner of the gun to switch between “safe,” “semiautomatic fire,” and “automatic fire.” (In some cases the choice is a three-round burst of auto fire instead of unlimited auto fire.)

M16s and M4s are exampled of automatic weapons with the select fire switch.

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M16s and M4s are actual “weapons of war,” but the AR-15 is just a semiautomatic rifle that shoots one round per trigger pull.

Grisham’s claim that an AR-15 is an “automatic weapon” is false.

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. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. 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.