A subway cleaner made an alarming discovery on a Lower Manhattan platform on Friday.
A deadly high-powered semi-automatic rifle was found in a trash can, police said. New York Post.
The gun was found around 3:15 p.m. at the Cortlandt Street station on the R train line.
Police told the New York Post that the gun was an unloaded AM-15 with no magazine.
Made by Anderson Manufacturing, an AM-15 is an “exceptionally lightweight, accurate, and fully customizable” rifle, as described on their website.
An AM-15, an AR-15-style weapon, was found in the trash bin on a Lower Manhattan subway platform (file image of an AR-15)
The gun was found around 3:15 pm at the Cortlandt Street station on the R train line (file image)
It is an AR-15 style weapon, the difference is the manufacturer. The ‘AR’ stands for the ArmaLite Rifle company.
AR-15 type weapons are frequently used in mass shootings. Several manufacturers have recreated their own version of the weapon, but they are all known as the AR-15.
Approximately 16 million Americans collectively own 22 million AR-15 rifles. They are the most popular style of rifle sold in the country, according to statesman.
Production of the model has skyrocketed in the last three decades. In the 1990s, the gun accounted for just 1 percent of firearms produced.
In 2020, they accounted for nearly 25 percent of firearms in production.
statesman reported that since 1982 there have been 65 mass rifle shootings. Most of them were semi-automatic.
Outside the Cortlandt Street subway station, where the gun was discovered on Friday (file image)
This terrifying subway discovery comes just over a month after a Florida high school student was accused of making a written threat of a mass shooting.
Police found airsoft rifles, fake ammunition, swords, knives and throwing stars in the home of 11-year-old Carlo ‘Kingston’ Dorelli after a classmate tipped them off.
He had written down a list of names and targets,” Sheriff Mike Chitwood wrote on Facebook. “He says it was all a joke.”