Leroy G. Walker Sr. (R), is a city council member in Auburn, Maine, and he wants to see limits on firearms which can “rapidly fire.”
Bangor Daily News (BDN) reported Walker’s son was killed in the October 25, 2023, Lewiston attacks in which the gunman allegedly used an AR-10 and an AR-15. An AR-10 is traditionally chambered in .308 and an AR-15 in 5.56.
Since the attack, Walker has pointed the finger at Republicans who have long opposed additional gun controls, claiming they are “prolonging what needs to be done to slow these weapons down.”
NPR quoted Walker saying, “…There needs to be some way to control how these weapons are fired to kill people. One that can fire 30 or 60 or 90 shots off and to be able to kill people in seconds – that needs to change somehow.”
Semiautomatic firearms like AR-10s and AR-15s fire one round and one round only per trigger pull. In this way, they are no different than a Glock or Sig Sauer pistol or a Ruger 10/22 rifle. If one pulls the trigger rapidly with any of these guns the result is that rounds are fired rapidly, however, accuracy is sacrificed along the way.
BDN noted the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, a gun control group, is using the Lewiston attacks as a platform from which to push for expanding background checks to cover private gun sales. They are doing this even though the attacker did not get his guns from a private source.
Rather, he purchased them legally at retail, according to WBUR, which means he passed a background check.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
