Kelly Gun Purchase: Gabrielle Giffords Husband Attempts to Buy Assault Weapon

Mark Kelly, the husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, attempted to purchase an AR-15 style rifle and a 45-caliber handgun at Diamondback Police Supply in Tucson.

According to Kelly, the purchase was an attempt to demonstrate how easy it is to buy an assault weapon. Kelly is currently lobbying Congress to ban assault weapons. He planned to turn it in to Tucson police on Tuesday.

The owner of the store, Doug MacKinley, decided to rescind the sale. The gun had been purchased from a customer, and under a Tucson ordinance, the store is required to hold the gun for 20 days to give the city time to ensure it was not used in the commission of a crime. During the waiting period, MacKinley posted a statement on his Facebook page, saying, "I determined that it was in my company's best interest to terminate this transaction prior to his returning to my store."

Kelly previously posted about the experience on his own Facebook page on March 5, including a photograph of himself shopping.

"Even to buy an assault weapon, the background check only takes a matter of minutes," he said. "Scary to think of people buying guns like these without a background check at a gun show or the Internet."

According to his statement, the post is one of the reasons MacKinley decided to cancel the sale.

"While I support and respect Mark Kelly's 2^nd Amendment rights to purchase, possess, and use firearms in a safe and responsible manner, his recent statements to the media made it clear that his intent in purchasing the Sig Sauer M400 5.56mm rifle from us was for reasons other than for his personal use," he said.

MacKinely said he sent a full refund to Kelly and would donate the rifle to the Arizona Tactical Officers Association, as well as, make a contribution of $1,295 to the Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program.

Kelly and Giffords started a gun control advocacy group, Americans for Responsible Solutions, during the recent mass shootings with the purpose "to encourage elected officials to stand up for solutions to prevent gun violence and protect responsible gun ownership."

As part of their advocacy work, they have been touring the country in support of expanded background checks for gun purchases.

The AR-15 is one the countries best selling firearms, and has become a focus of the gun control debate after its use in the recent mass shootings, including the Newtown massacre in Connecticut.

Kelly, a former astronaut, became a gun control advocate after his wife, Gabrielle, was shot in the head in a January 2011 shooting at a Tucson supermarket that wounded 13 people and left six others dead.