The owner of an Arizona gun store canceled Mark Kelly's purchase of an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle after Kelly made comments to the media that he purchased the gun to demonstrate how easy it is to obtain a firearm.
Douglas MacKinlay, owner of Diamondback Police Supply Co. in Tuscon said a full refund was sent to Kelly last Thursday.
"While I support and respect Mark Kelly's 2nd 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 then for his personal use," MacKinlay said in a statement on their Facebook page obtained by NBC News.
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Kelly, husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is a gun control advocate who recently said in an interview that he wanted to demonstrate how easy it is to purchase a gun. Kelly and Giffords, who was injured in a mass shooting in Tuscon have been lobbying for background checks and restrictions on the sale of high-capacity magazines.
"It's important for me to have firsthand knowledge about how easy it is or difficult it is, you know, to buy a weapon like that," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview earlier this month.
MacKinlay said the rifle will be donated the Arizona Tactical Officers Association and raffled off to raise funds for the organization's equipment needs.
Kelly made news on Monday when he stepped in to pull a dog off of a sea lion that it attacked it killed on a beach in California. The dog belonged to Kelly's daughter.
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