The gunman used a high-powered, low cost knock-off assault rifle in Wednesday's deadly shootout. Amir Crump opened fire shooting and reloading a number of times, an estimated 50 rounds in all. Police train for these types of situations and they're prepared to deal with them, but they still never really expect them.
Ron Montoya, with American Shooter Supply, said, "I think our department is very well armed and very well trained and I don't see that there is anything out there on the market that can really compete with what we have in our law enforcement armory today."
Help to Sgt. Henry Prendes came from a plain clothes officer. The officer, who heard the call, came to the scene with his own high-powered AR-15 rifle and was wounded in action.
Ron Montoya said. "We do sell a lot of these to the officers for situations like this, and as little as they have to be used, there are instances, like yesterday, where they were used."
Montoya owns American Shooter Supply. He sells weapons to police officers and law-abiding citizens, but he says a lot of weapons get into the wrong hands because the buyers are able to bypass the checks and balances. "Unfortunately, there are still a lot of gaps out there such as newspaper purchases and gun shows where they're not governed. And most of these crime-related incidents purchase their firearms through gun shows, or through the newspapers, places that aren't regulated."
And that means guns on the streets with no record of who owns them. Anyone who wants to buy a gun or rifle at American Shooter Supply must go through a background check, provide basic identification and be at least 21 years old.
"This is all the info obtained by the state from an indivdual buying a rifle. I think the way they have it down now, it's a good check system." It's a system Montoya believes should be the only means of obtaining a gun.
Another problem are copycat assault weapons. According to a report from a group called the Violence Policy Center, Nevada, Arizona and Utah have the largest concentration of these copycat manufactures in the country. They make mostly cosmetic changes to banned weapons and then market them as "post-ban" guns.
