From CBS News -
What makes the AR-15 style rifle the weapon of choice for mass shooters?
The mass murder last week at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, has something in common with America's deadliest massacres - the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. Variations of the AR-15 were used in this month's massacre at a Buffalo supermarket; at a Texas Walmart in 2019; a Florida high school in 2018; a Texas church and a Las Vegas concert in 2017; and Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. The AR-15 style weapon is the most popular rifle in America with well over 11 million. And they are rarely used in crime. But, the AR-15 is the weapon of choice of the worst mass murderers. AR-15 ammunition travels up to three times the speed of sound. And as we first showed you in 2018, we're going to slow that down - so you can see why the AR-15's high velocity ammo is the fear of every american emergency room.
Mass shootings were once so shocking they were impossible to forget. Now they've become so frequent it's hard to remember them all. In October 2018, at a Pittsburgh synagogue, eleven were killed, six wounded.
[snip]
With the AR-15, it's not just the speed of the bullet, but also how quickly hundreds of bullets can be fired. The AR-15 is not a fully automatic machine gun. It fires only one round with each pull of the trigger. But in Las Vegas, it sounded like a machine gun.
A special add-on device called a bump stock allowed the killer to pull the trigger rapidly enough to kill 58 and wound 489. In other mass killings the AR-15 was fired without a bump stock, but even then, it can fire about 60 rounds a minute. Ammunition magazines that hold up to 100 rounds can be changed in about five seconds.
The used many words to answer their own question when I could've answered the same question with far fewer words -
The AR15 gives mass murderers the ability to kill lots of people very quickly.
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