Ulster, N.Y. Mall Shooting:
Just Another Day in America, Says Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence United with the Million Mom MarchMon Feb 14, 4:24 PM ET
To: National Desk
Contact: Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence United with the Million Mom March, 202-898-0792
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Robert Bonelli, 24, a troubled young adult with a collection of Columbine memorabilia in his home, opened fire Sunday on shoppers at a mall in New York with an AK-47 clone assault rifle.
Where did he get the gun? Wherever he wanted to. On the same day he walked into the Best Buy store at the Hudson Valley Mall, gun sellers across America were offering weapons so powerful and advanced that they have been the subject of recent global security complaints by the United States government.
The same day Bonelli shot two shoppers in New York, arms merchants at a gun show just outside Washington, D.C. offered for sale not only AK-47s and other clones like the Hesse Arms Model 47 Bonelli brandished, but also 50-caliber sniper rifles, capable of penetrating an airliner or a nuclear reactor from half a mile away and costing $25,000. Michael Barnes, the President of the Brady Campaign, attended "The Nation's Gun Show" at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia and inspected the 50-caliber rifle. Barnes noted that not only were many AK-47s and Ak-47 copycat weapons for sale, but also conversion kits to allow the guns to operate as machine guns.
While these weapons are available readily across America, American foreign policy experts have been pursuing complaints about sales of the same weapons to Venezuela and Iran. Last Friday, the Washington Times reported that the U.S. has lodged a formal protest with Russia for agreeing to sell more than 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles to the government of Venezuela. The action comes just four months after the Bush Administration let the ten- year-old Federal ban on assault weapons, including the AK-47, expire. And today the Associated Press reported that the U.S. is concerned about an Austrian company selling 800 50-caliber rifles to Iran. The weapon is legal in the U.S., except in California.
"It is painful hypocrisy," said Barnes, a former member of Congress with considerable expertise in foreign affairs. "It must be very difficult for our State Department negotiators to try to explain our objections to these global transactions with a straight face."
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