Piers Morgan wants US President Donald Trump to "stop being such a cowardly tool of the gun lobby" and ban the AR-15 rifle, after several mass shootings in the United States in recent years had the assault rifle as the common denominator.

In a column for the Daily Mail after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Morgan said the reasons for mass shootings may differ from incident to incident -- including mental illness, drugs, violent video games, sthe reasons ocial rejection, or simply pure bigotry, racism, and hateful intolerance -- but they all had one common thing.

"But the unarguable common denominator is guns. And in recent years, there is a more specific commonality to the type of gun mass shooters use: the AR-15, military-style semi-automatic rifle."

Morgan went on to state that half of the United States' worst mass shootings have come in the past 14 years, and almost every single one featured the use of AR-15s. 

After the Pittsburg shooting that killed 11, Trump had said that people inside the temple should have had "some kind of protection," but brushed aside any revisit of gun laws. "This had little to do with it," Trump said then.

Trump's response to the massacre at the synagogue was similar to the one after the Parkland school shooting, when he called for teachers to be armed.  According to Morgan, Trump does not want to upset a "ruthless lobby group hell-bent on turning America into a militarized state," pointing at the National Rifle Association.

"It’s his default position on every mass shooting now, and of course, the preferred rhetorical template of his paymasters at the NRA, who deliver him big votes and big money," Morgan wrote.

"In Trump, they now have a compliant President who will do their bidding, because he thinks it will be electoral suicide not to."

He said that while Trump has his heart in the right place when he says his top priority is to "keep America safe", he chooses to do nothing to stop the use of AR-15s to slaughter Americans.

Piers asserted that all these shooters using an AR-15 was not merely a coincidence, but because of a few straight advantages: they are light, easy to maneuver, and designed to shoot as many rounds as possible in the shortest time. 

Morgan also recent shooting massacres which involved the use of the deadly rifle.

In 2012, James Holmes was armed with an AR-15 when he killed 12 people in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

A few months later, Adam Lanza was armed with an AR-15 when he killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook school in Connecticut.

In 2015, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were armed with two AR-15s when they killed 14 people in San Bernardino.

In 2016, Omar Mateen was armed with an AR-15 when he killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

In 2017, Stephen Paddock was armed with 12 AR-15s when he killed 58 people at a music festival in Las Vegas.

A month later, Devin Kelly was armed with an AR-15 when he killed 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

In February, 2018, Nikolas Cruz was armed with an AR-15 when he killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

And most recently, on Saturday morning, Pittsburgh shooter Robert Bowers was armed with an AR-15 when he killed 11 people.
 

While gun connoisseurs in America do not want to let go of their firearms because it would infringe their Constitutional 2nd Amendment rights, Morgan thinks it is unfair to the victims, which include "schoolchildren, moviegoers, worshippers or even night-clubbers."

The winner of the first installment of Trump's hit reality show 'The Apprentice' said the president could "do the right thing now" to help curb the scale of and intensity of these shootings.

In conclusion, Piers had a no holds barred message for Trump.

"Stop being such a coward, Mr. President," he wrote. "You can’t pretend to be tough and strong on safety, yet turn a blind eye to this insane AR-15 Groundhog Day. When President Clinton introduced an assault weapons ban in 1994, a certain New York businessman supported it. That was you, Mr. Trump. In 2000, you were unequivocal when you said, ‘I support the ban on assault weapons.' You were right then, and you’d be right now. AR-15s have no place in any civilized society. Grow a pair, and ban them."