Parkland killer Nikolas Cruz’s AR-15 displayed in Florida court

The AR-15 that Parkland killer Nikolas Cruz used to slaughter 17 people was put on chilling display Monday at his death penalty trial in Florida.

Lead prosecutor Mike Satz pulled out the sizeable weapon from a cardboard box and handed it to a law-enforcement witness on the stand.

Cruz, now 23, was 19 when he killed 14 students and three staffers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018.

His defense attorneys, who are lobbying for life in prison rather than a death sentence, objected to the gun’s presentation, arguing that it would unduly inflame jurors.

But Judge Elizabeth Scherer rejected that argument and allowed it to be produced.

Jurors had already seen the semi-automatic Smith & Wesson firearm in surveillance videos that showed Cruz mowing down victims indiscriminately on several floors of the school.

The horrific footage showed Cruz firing at defenseless victims at close range and doubling back to finish off some of the wounded.

Citing the premeditated brutality of the attack, prosecutors are campaigning for Cruz to be sentenced to death.

Defense attorneys argue that his traumatic upbringing — including seeing his father die of a heart attack in front of him at age five — call for life without parole.

Cruz dumped the gun and and a black shooter’s vest at the scene before mixing in with fleeing students and leaving the area.

The killer, who often puts his head down when graphic materials are presented in court, has already pleaded guilty to the slayings.

Cruz fired more than 100 bullets during the roughly seven-minute rampage and left several more magazines behind in the vest before fleeing the scene.