Washington (AFP) - US gun makers earned more than $1 billion from the sale of AR-15-style semiautomatic weapons over the last decade, a House committee said Wednesday as lawmakers grilled manufacturers following a series of grim mass shootings.
"The gun industry has flooded our neighborhoods, our schools and even our churches and synagogues with these deadly weapons and has gotten rich doing it," Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney said.
"Even as guns kill more Americans than ever, none of those companies take even basic steps to monitor the deaths and injuries caused by their products," the New York lawmaker said."This is beyond irresponsible."
Marty Daniel, chief executive officer of Daniel Defense -- maker of the gun used by a young man to kill 19 school children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas -- defended his company's practices.
"The stated implied purpose of this hearing is to vilify, blame and try to ban over 24 million sporting rifles already in circulation that are lawfully possessed and commonly used by millions of Americans to protect their homes and loved ones," Daniel said.
"I believe our nation's response needs to focus not on the type of gun but on the types of persons who are likely to commit mass shootings," he said.
Christopher Killoy, president and CEO of Sturm, Ruger & Co., said it would be "wrong to deprive citizens of their constitutional right to purchase a lawful firearm."
Republican lawmakers on the committee pushed back against their Democratic colleagues.
"Gun manufacturers do not cause violent crime," said Representative James Comer of Kentucky."Criminals cause violent crime."
"We'll continue to protect the rights of all law-abiding gun owners who safely use, store and carry firearms including the AR-15," Comer said.
Bill to ban assault weapons
According to a report by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, five major gun manufacturers reaped more than one billion dollars from the sale of assault rifles over the last decade.
Daniel Defense's revenue from AR-15-style rifles tripled from $40 million in 2019 to more than $120 million in 2021, the report said.
Ruger's earnings from AR-15-style rifles rose from $39 million to $103 million during the period while Smith & Wesson's revenue from long guns, including AR-15-style rifles, doubled, from $108 million to $253 million.
The Democratic-controlled House is moving forward for the first time in nearly 20 years with a bill that would ban the sale, import, manufacture or transfer of certain types of semi-automatic weapons.
The "Assault Weapons Ban of 2021" would be likely doomed to fail in the Senate, however.
Democrats have 50 seats in the 100-member Senate and 10 Republican votes would be needed to bring the measure to the floor.
Congress passed a 10-year ban on assault rifles and certain high-capacity magazines in 1994.
But lawmakers let it expire in 2004, and sales of those weapons have soared since then.
After the Uvalde massacre, President Joe Biden appealed to lawmakers to again ban assault rifles or at least raise the minimum age for buying them from 18 to 21.
But Republican lawmakers, who see such a restriction as going against the constitutional right to bear arms, have refused to go along with Biden's proposal.
