Aurora shooting what kind of guns

Rick Vasquez, a former ATF firearms enforcement officer in the Firearms Technology Branch of the ATF and owner of Rick Vasquez Firearms , which does consulting and training, said there are two good reasons someone would want to buy the pistol variant.

If it looks like a rifle and could be made into a handgun it's been made into a handgun. Those have been tightly regulated since the Great Depression, partly because they were identified as the gun of choice for Prohibition-era gangsters. And there would be more paperwork, should the owner of a short-barrel rifle wish to drive across state lines. There has been an effort to regulate what constitutes a brace on a pistol, and define which braces are essentially a stock and which are legitimate braces to aid firing a pistol variant with one hand.

ATF briefly opened a comment period on new rules, but then abruptly withdrew it five days later without further action. You want to know what is really going on these days, especially in Colorado. We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free, daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado. Sign up here and we will see you in the morning!

Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct references to the. Michelle Castillo. Please enter email address to continue. Please enter valid email address to continue. Chrome Safari Continue. Be the first to know. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to bring forward two House-passed bills to require expanded background checks for gun buyers.

Biden supports the measures, but they face a tougher route to passage in a closely divided Senate with a slim Democratic majority. The shooting came 10 days after a judge blocked a ban on assault rifles passed by the city of Boulder in That ordinance and another banning large-capacity magazines came after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead.

A lawsuit challenging the bans was filed quickly, backed by the National Rifle Association. The judge struck down the ordinance under a Colorado law that blocks cities from making their own rules about guns. Supermarket employees told investigators that Alissa shot a man multiple times outside the Boulder grocery store before going inside, according to the affidavit. The gunfire sent terrorized shoppers and employees scrambling for cover. SWAT officers carrying ballistic shields slowly approached the store while others escorted frightened people away from the building, which had some of its windows shattered.

Customers and employees fled through a back loading dock to safety. The brace essentially replaces a buttstock, which sits at the end of most long guns, like rifles, to help absorb recoil. Firearms are defined and categorized at the federal level under the Gun Control Act , which was passed in The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which helps regulate weaponry, details how different weapons are categorized and the the steps that need to be taken in order to purchase one.

The Gun Control Act defines a pistol as a weapon intended to fire a bullet with a short stock that is "designed to be gripped by one hand.

The definition doesn't note anything about the length of a barrel, meaning longer pistols like the Ruger AR that mirror a rifle can still be categorized as a pistol if it meets the criteria, said Rick Vasquez, a former ATF firearms enforcement officer who owns a firearms business that offers training in identifying firearms and on regulations.

A rifle is defined under the Act as a weapon intended "to be fired from the shoulder" and to fire a single bullet for each pull of the trigger. More: Gun groups' success blocking local firearm controls leaves towns desperate to stop massacres.

More: Why the AR keeps appearing at America's deadliest mass shootings. He added these AR-styled pistols have become a favorite of gun buyers. Vasquez noted the gun's compact nature is a feature that helps both conceal it and makes it more maneuverable. But in some ways, the weapon mirrors a short-barrel rifle, which are heavily regulated under the National Firearms Act due to those exact factors. A short-barrel rifle is defined in the Act as a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches.

The Ruger AR pistol has a barrel of anywhere from 9. The Act regulates certain weapons and attachments, including machine guns, silencers and sawed-off shotguns. It poses stringent rules and a lengthy process in order to purchase these weapons.