Mark Kelly Focuses on AR-15's Gas Operation 64 Years After Gun's Design
Sen. Mark Kelly is pushing a ban on AR-15s by focusing on their gas operation system approximately 64 years after the gun's design.
www.breitbart.com Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is pushing a ban on AR-15s by focusing on their gas operation system approximately 64 years after the gun’s design included such a system.
Breitbart News reported that Sen. Angus King (I-ME) and a group of Senate Democrats, including Kelly, introduced an AR-15 ban early Thursday. In so doing, they used new catchphrases such as “lethal capacity weapons” and “gas-operated semiautomatic.”
Later Thursday, Kelly posted a video on X in which he continued to emphasize the new catchphrases by explaining that this latest attempt to ban AR-15s and similar rifles “focuses on the lethality of their internal mechanisms.”
He described the proposed ban as a “renewed effort” and explained that the firearms he wants to ban are “semiautomatic, gas-operated rifles.” He did not mention that the gas operation of an AR-15 is nothing new. In fact, it is about 64 years old if we date it back to 1959, when Colt acquired the license to manufacture the rifle.
By design, an AR uses gas emitted from a spent round, directing the gas to the bolt carrier group to reset it, at which time another round is chambered and ready to be fired with the next trigger pull. Non-gas-operated semiautomatics operate off recoil, with the action of the gun, such as a 9mm pistol, cycling as a result of the energy pushed backward during the process of firing a round.
Using the “gas operated” designation for an AR-15 does not change the fact that an AR-15 is a semiautomatic firearm that shoots one round–and one round only–per trigger pull.
Moreover, designating a gun ban as a prohibition against “semiautomatic, gas-operated rifles” just means it is a ban targeting the same guns all other “assault weapons” bans have targeted.
