A couple weeks before drawing conservative ire for buying a high-powered AR-15 rifle, gun control advocate and former astronaut Mark Kelly reportedly went shopping at an Arizona gun store but lacked the necessary ID to make a purchase.
Doug MacKinlay, the owner of Diamondback Police Supply in Tucson, told the Arizona Daily Star in a report published Tuesday that Kelly returned last week with the ID and was allowed to make a purchase. He ended up buying the AR-15 along with a .45-caliber handgun. On Friday, Kelly posted a photo on his Facebook page showing him going through the background check process in what he described as “a matter of minutes.”
MacKinlay told the paper he was taken aback by Kelly’s purchase. “We were a little surprised,” he said. Kelly’s AR-15 buy drew scrutiny from some conservatives, namely Breitbart.com, which ran a story during the weekend suggesting the gun control advocate only went public with his purchase when it became clear that the news was going to surface anyway.
Kelly, whose wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was wounded in a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, disputed the accusation in an interview with CNN on Monday. He said he bought the guns and posted a photo to show how easy it was to undergo a background check.
