AR-15s existed long before the ban and people didn’t much care for them. They use an intermediate round which hunters consider too low-power to be humane, and I believe it’s illegal to hunt with those rounds in some states. Anybody could get one, only few people did.
So what happened? Democrats said, “You can’t have these!” and Americans, predictably, flipped out and bought tens of millions once available. Hell, I wasn’t interested until everyone was screaming BAN after Uvalde. Figured if I was ever going to get one, might as well get grandfathered in. The long-standing joke is that Democrats are the best gun salesmen of all.
Also, the media hype. Have you noticed the media salivates over “assault weapons” given the opportunity? ALL long guns, of which AR-15’s are a subset, are responsible for only 4% of the killing. Our media has beat it into our heads that the best way to kill a bunch of people is the AR-15.
There are so many other gun death related issues we should be beating the drum about. That’s another long post. :(