‘I’m a Very Proud Owner.’ Fans of AR-15 Explain Their Weapon’s Appeal.

The AR-15 rifle has become known as the powerful weapon used by a number of gunmen to slaughter scores of people in Newtown, Connecticut; San Bernardino, California; Las Vegas; Parkland, Florida and beyond. But to Alexander Garcia, the AR-15 represents something else altogether: his favorite gun.

“That’s my baby,” said Garcia, 34, a musician in Southern California who likes to take his AR-15 out target-shooting. “It’s one of the greatest rifles I’ve ever fired. I’m a very proud owner.”

The waves of fury and grief over the mass shooting that killed 17 students and adults last week at a South Florida high school has refocused attention onto the AR-15 and its popularity.

In the wake of the shooting, a handful of AR-15 owners are rethinking whether they still want to own a style of rifle originally designed for troops to kill enemy fighters.

One gun owner in upstate New York sawed his AR-15 into three pieces in an online video that quickly went viral, asking, “Is the right to own this weapon more important than someone’s life?” In Broward County, Florida, another man asked the local sheriff’s office to destroy his AR-57 semi-automatic rifle.

But in interviews, other AR-15 owners said they swear by the guns. They called the rifle a lightweight, easy-to-fire symbol of their Second Amendment rights and said they would never give up what they called a misunderstood weapon. In fact, one group, the AR-15 Gun Owners of America, said it had gained 10,000 new fans on its Facebook page since the shooting in Parkland.

Here are the perspectives from some of those AR-15 owners.

Garcia said he bought his AR-15 about a year ago and keeps it locked in a case inside his home in Rancho Cucamonga, in San Bernardino County, California. He said that he had a concealed-weapons permit and that he went out with a handgun at all times.

“As we speak, I am armed,” he said.

He takes his AR-15 target-shooting and, like many other owners, said he liked how easily he could swap in components such as scopes. At the shooting range, he said, other gun owners often approach him and ask how he personalized the rifle to his liking.

Garcia, whose father served in the military, said he embraced the military roots of the AR-15. The Pentagon’s version of the rifle, named the M16 and capable of automatic or burst fire, was first distributed to U.S. troops in Vietnam, and versions of the gun that do not fire automatically became enormously popular for civilian use. AR-15s were targeted under the Assault Weapons Ban from 1994 to 2004 but today are legal. Garcia said that his was made by Smith & Wesson and that he bought it for about $800.

Garcia said the weapon had been demonized and misrepresented.

“This rifle is in no way an assault rifle,” he said. “An inanimate object is not committing these crimes.”

Shyanne Roberts was 9 when she built her first AR-15-style rifle. Now 13 and a competitive shooter in South Carolina, she regularly uses AR-15s at shooting competitions, along with shotguns and pistols. Her rifle is black with purple marbling; purple is one of her favorite colors. Her name is engraved on the scope mount, so everyone knows it is hers.

“I like shooting them because it’s just another gun to master,” she said.

She has testified against stricter gun laws in New Jersey and said that she did not support tightening laws on semi-automatic rifles in the wake of the Florida shooting.

“Everybody always says it’s the gun that did it,” she said. “No, it’s the person. The person uses the firearm the incorrect way. No matter what, they’re still going to get their guns.”

Shyanne’s father, Dan Roberts, said that being vocal AR-15 owners (they have eight between them) had made him and his daughter targets for online anger. He said he had gotten messages hoping that a gun would blow up in Shyanne’s face or that she would become a victim in the next mass shooting.

“We’re not monsters,” he said. “We’re just regular, normal people who want to be left alone.”

For Jerrol Jensen, the growing body count has complicated his feelings about the AR-15 rifles that sit in a locked cabinet at his home in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Jensen, 55, who calls his politics “extremely liberal,” said he had used AR-15-style rifles for three decades to hunt and target-shoot. He said he had done extensive work as a test-shooter for rifles, some of which were used by the military and law enforcement. He said he always felt he was doing a public service.

But he said that he opposed the National Rifle Association’s aggressive opposition to gun-control measures and that he supported closing loopholes that allow guns to be purchased outside licensed dealers. His wife supports banning them outright, Jensen said.

He wondered what place there should be in society for a weapon that had caused so much carnage.

“That’s the potential of the rifle,” Jensen said. “There’s nothing out there that’ll compare to it as to doing what it was designed to do, and that’s kill people.”