Law enforcement sources indicate that the suspected Trump rally shooter used a DPMS AR-15 that his father purchased in 2013. The FBI later identified the AR-15-style rifle as a DPMS A-15 designed to fire 5.56mm NATO/.223 Remington ammunition and outfitted with an Aero Precision handguard, a Holosun AEMS reflex sight, and a Magpul collapsible stock.
A DPMS AR-15 was also used in the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, where 14 people were killed and another 22 were wounded.
the history of DPMS
Founded in 1985, Defense Procurement Manufacturing Services (DPMS) is one of the earliest companies to market AR-style rifles for civilians. The company consistently pushed AR-15s and larger-caliber AR-10s for hunting and other pursuits, including target shooting through its “Panther Arms” subsidiary, years before it became common in the gun industry. The company’s founder, Randy Luth, said, “We’d have NRA members walk by our booth and give us the finger” before the industry fully embraced AR-15s and similar military-style rifles.
But after the federal assault weapons ban was allowed to sunset in 2004, the gun industry saw the profit potential in selling weapons like the AR-15. In 2007, the Freedom Group — a large conglomerate that owned Remington and Bushmaster, another AR-15 manufacturer known for its notorious “Man Card” advertising — purchased DPMS, which was making nearly $100 million in annual sales at the time.
While DPMS produced just over 10,000 AR-style rifles before the federal assault weapons ban was enacted — and several thousand “post-ban” models reconfigured to remain legal during the ban — DPMS’ annual production skyrocketed after the ban ended, reaching nearly 95,000 rifles in 2008 alone.
Learn more about AR-15s and other assault weapons here.
As part of the Freedom Group, DPMS continued making AR-15s and pioneered larger-caliber AR-10s that use .308 Winchester ammunition but are scaled down to more closely match the size of an AR-15. In other words, the company created rifles that were more powerful versions of AR-15s that were just as nimble and easy to shoot in close quarters, for example. (This is the same design concept behind the Ruger SFAR rifle used in the Lewiston, Maine, mass shooting.)
DPMS Marketing examples
The PSA connection
JJE Capital, which owns Palmetto State Armory (PSA) and other gun companies, acquired the DPMS brand in September 2020, shortly after Remington Outdoor Company, the successor to the Freedom Group, filed for bankruptcy and sold off its various brands.
Headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina, PSA is a large, vertically integrated gun manufacturer that produces its own firearms — including a variety of assault weapons —under the PSA brand and sells them online and at brick-and-mortar stores in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, along with firearms and parts made by other companies.
Ironically, President Trump visited a PSA store in Summerville, South Carolina in September 2023, where he stated that he wanted to purchase a Glock pistol with his face engraved on it. The sale would likely have been illegal at the time.
PSA AR-15s were used in the Jacksonville, Florida, shooting in August 2023 and the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School mass shooting in St. Louis, Missouri, in October 2022. An AR-15 made by PSA’s sister brand, Lead Star Arms, was also used in the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, in March 2023.
PSA states that its “mission is to maximize freedom, not our profits. We want to sell as many AR-15 and AK-47 rifles as we can and put them into common use in America today. Our focus isn’t to make massive amounts of money but to spread freedom as far and wide as possible. Our legacy will not be about money; we want our legacy to be about maximizing American freedom.”
PSA’S MARKETING PRACTICES
PSA has also marketed products to political extremists. In the past, the company offered a “Big Igloo Aloha” AK-47 with a Hawaiian-shirt-themed paint job associated with “boogaloo” extremists who want to violently overthrow the U.S. government. Hawaiian shirts have become the unofficial uniform of these extremists, and “big igloo” is a play on “boogaloo,” the nickname for their proposed war against government forces.
PSA previously sold a T-shirt depicting a boogaloo supporter guarding a pile of toilet paper rolls in the midst of pandemic shortages as well as a Hawaiian shirt emblazoned with AK-47s. Both have been discontinued.
The company also offers “meme” lower receivers, the basic building blocks of AR-style rifles, so that its customers can “[m]ake a statement,” with engravings including the Gadsden flag, calls to “Build the Wall,” and “Let’s Go Brandon” — gun parts that, at best, trivialize the seriousness of owning a deadly weapon and, at worst, could appeal to political extremists.
Additionally, PSA has posted images of children holding AR-15s on its Facebook page with the captions “Raise them right!” and “This is why we do what we do!”; three PSA retail locations have been identified by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as selling a significant number of crime guns; and the company offers “shoot now, pay later” financing, to name a few examples. To learn more about PSA, click here.
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