Prohibiting the most famous rifle in the United States is the best we can do

One of the most mythical moments of the movie Fight Club is a monologue by Edward Norton towards his boss. It mentions an Armalite rifle, in all menacing: "I must tell you that I would be very careful who you talk to about that, because the person who wrote that is dangerous, and this crazy man with a thin shirt could have a psychotic outbreak and go to the office in office with a Armalite AR10 semiautomatic weapon, liquidating colleagues and employees ".

It is not a trivial threat, because the Armalite rifles are the most famous in the United States. The most acquired. Especially the AR-15 rifle.

**A public health problem

It is estimated that Americans currently own more than 8 million AR-15. The standard rifle accepts a wide variety of loaders with different capacities and has a pistol protruding from the cylinder head line, resulting in a highly adaptable and configurable rifle. It can be equipped with accessories such as a bipod, retractable or folding heads, cannons with flame arresters and rail systems to add flashlights, laser pointers, telescopic sight, etc.

It is so popular because it is very customizable, as well as "reliable and accurate", and can be adapted to a wide variety of uses, such as hunting or "self-defense situations".

But we should prohibit its sale. Strictly

Because the worst mass shootings are made with this rifle, like the Las Vegas shooting of 2017, which killed 58 people and wounded 851. The AR-15 was also used in the San Bernadino attack of 2015, which caused 14 deaths and 22 seriously injured.

The reason that it is the favorite weapon to kill people and not to hunt animals or defend against a possible attacker is its firepower. While the rifle manufacturer discusses this by saying that it is not the weapon, but how you use it, one wonders to what extent that logic really works.

While prohibiting weapons in the United States is a subject of intense debate and is difficult to win, yes, at least, we should agree that this particular rifle should be banned.

Risk to public health

Weapons are a public health problem. But despite the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, the House of Representatives controlled by the Florida Republicans voted 71-36 to reject the ban on assault weapons such as the AR-15. And what's more: that same day they approved a measure that identified pornography as a risk to public health.

The problem of weapons in the United States is serious, but we should not aspire for the moment to control mass culture (because we have no evidence that it actually increases homicides) nor to ban weapons altogether (because it is part of the DNA from the country). But we can begin to tackle some clear points, such as the control of the sale of weapons that are particularly lethal and easy to use to cause human casualties, such as automatic rifles. Especially in the case of the supercompradores of arms.