A New Hampshire car dealer is offering everyone who buys a car a free AR-15 assault rifle, a type of weapon similar to the one used in the Orlando LGBT nightclub massacre.
Mike Hagan owns Hagan’s Motor Pool Auto Repair and Sales in Rochester. He says he has given away four AR-15s and one 9mm handgun, an option for buyers who don’t want the rifle.
Hagan told NH1-TV that he has partnered with a nearby gun store, which runs the required background checks.
Hagan is a combat veteran who served in Afghanistan. He says the possibility the weapons he’s giving away could be used to kill civilians doesn’t weigh on him.
He hasn’t returned calls seeking information on whether the promotion began before or after Orlando gunman Omar Mateen attacked the Pulse nightclub on Sunday, leaving 49 people dead.
AR-15-style rifles were used by the shooters in the San Bernardino terror attack in December, as well as in the 2012 attacks at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Critics call AR-15-style rifles the weapon of choice for terrorists and mass murderers; such guns were targeted by the 1994 federal ban on “assault weapons”, which some Democrats tried and failed to renew in 2013.