In the weeks before a gunman wielding an AR-15 style rifle killed 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, he purchased 2,115 rounds of ammunition. Every one of them was made at a U.S. Army-owned facility just outside Kansas City, Mo.
Later that year, another shooter walked into a St. Louis high school equipped with over 400 rounds from the same plant. He killed a student and a teacher in an attack with bullets designed for use on the battlefield.
The use of ammunition manufactured at the facility, the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, was not unusual: its products have become a common denominator in crimes involving 5.56-millimeter and .223-caliber rounds — the most widely used cartridges for AR-15 style weapons — according to new data that provides a rare window into Lake City’s role in the ecosystem for the popular firearms…