You have made the personal decision that you don't need a rifle. You can't speak for others. You should probably stick to objective things instead of subjective ones.
There is no evidence of this assertion. You can suspect it's because it's "ease to obtain," combined with it's "effectiveness," but that is purely speculative on your part. I personally think it's a coolness factor at play with these lunatics.
Shotguns and handguns are both far cheaper and easier to obtain. And as we've seen, a ban on assault weapons does not stop school shootings from occurring.
Effectiveness? Let's break that down.
What makes the AR more effective than a handgun? It fires at the same rate. It's bullets are generally a similar size/caliber and cause the same amount of damage. A handgun is far easier to manipulate and aim as it's smaller, lighter, and more portable. A handgun is far easier to get closer to a target because it is concealable.
The AR's advantage is it has an edge in aiming due to it's stock and barrel/sights. But this is primarily an edge in intermediate and long range scenarios, not necessarily in close-quarter combat.
Is it magazine size? I don't know if I've seen a handgun with a 30 round magazine, but 17 is very common.
At the end of the day, we are talking about 13 extra rounds in a magazine and a long sighted barrel. Is this the difference in these mass shootings? I'm not buying it. Mass shootings aren't gonna happen if AR magazines are limited to 17 rounds? Doubtful.
And you can't ban barrels. They are on every hunting rifle in existence.
I am unconvinced that the reason the AR is the weapon of choice for these shootings is their excessive deadliness. Instead, they are part of the fantasy that mentally ill, delusional individuals have of being part of a paramilitary organization and so they obtain weapons that MOCK and MIMIC military weapons but instead share the characteristics of your basic handgun and hunting rifle and are not superior in function to either of those things.
Ban them and while the innocent are punished, the criminally insane will still use handguns and shotguns to carry out their murder fantasies, as those two sickos did at Columbine.
Ending the rash of school shooting terror is going to require solutions that (a) actually will prevent school shootings, and (b) do not punish law abiders with constitutional rights.
