The viral Tweet has sparked debate on stricter gun laws in the US as well as a ban on assault weapons.
ADVERTISEMENTSix people including three children were killed in a shooting at a Nashville primary Christian school on Monday in the US state of Tennessee.
The assailant was identified by officials as Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old former student at The Covenant School, stormed into the elementary school and killed six people before being fatally shot by responding police officers.
In the aftermath of the tragic shooting, a tweet went viral on social media, once again sparking calls for stricter gun laws in the country.
It implies most mass shootings in the country including the Nashville one had been carried out with an AR-15 weapon.
AR-15s are semi automatic guns, meaning a shooter must pull the trigger to fire each shot.
They’re also the best selling rifle in the US - 1 in 20 adults – or roughly 16 million people – own at least one AR-15 style weapon, according to the Washington Post.
These weapons have also become a symbol of the country’s gun violence epidemic. Ten of the 17 deadliest mass shootings since 2012 have involved AR-15s.
Yes, most mass shootings have involved AR-15 style weapons
The Cube combed through the list of mass shooting mentioned in the post and found the statement to be mostly true.
An AR-15 style weapon was used in all of the mass shootings mentioned here except for the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016 which left 49 people dead.
In that incident, it was another weapon called a Sig Sauer MCX that was used.
In addition, the type of weapon used in the Boulder shooting of 2021 which left 10 people left, hasn’t been released.
But according to Colorado Public Radio, it mostly probably wasn’t an AR-15.
In the case of the Nashville shooting, The Cube identified one of the guns used by the assailant was a Grunt III AR-15 style rifle manufactured by the company Lead Star.
The powerful rifles were also used during two of the deadliest mass shootings in the last decade, including when 60 people were killed during a music festival in Las Vegas in 2017 and the death of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut in 2012, the deadliest mass shooting at an elementary school in US history.
The Nashville school shooting is the 131st mass shooting that has taken place so far in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive as of Tuesday morning.
That means there have already been more mass shootings than days in the year so far.