I don't hate Ar15's. I have 2 of them. I got one from an estate sale of a friend. It was one of the first ever sold in Nashville. Back in the 70's, as soon as my friend saw an advertisement for the new AR15, he ran down to the local gun shop and put in an order. It is a colt. It would be worth allot of money had he not customized it to his own liking.
Growing up, m1 carbines had already become way too expensive. Back in the 90's it was AKs. You could go to a gun show and get a norinko sporterized AK with the thumbhole stock and 5 rnd mags for $300 at one table, buy a stock set for $35 at the next table, buy 30rd east german mags for $7 at the next table, and buy 1000 rds of chinese 7.62x39 for $150 at the next table. All it was missing is a threaded barrel and a bayonet lug which I did not care about. I know because I did it.
Here is an interesting article. Its an interview with Ryan Busse, who served for 25 years as vice president of sales for weapons manufacturer Kimber.
Opinion | How the AR-15 conquered America, as revealed by an industry insider - The Washington Post
Here is a couple of things he says in the interview that I found interesting which actually goes into what some people on here are saying is the cause of this.
"Twenty years ago, everybody believed the industry was dying. Every marketing person in the industry looked around with some worry about how to reach new market shares."
"Probably in the mid-to-late 2000s, you start to see the rise of first-person shooter games, following the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
There was lots of discussion in marketing-planning meetings about how you could get your gun model placed in a movie or a video game. That represented a solution to the problem, which was: How do we attract a new market segment away from this graying, older market segment that's not growing? There was a young demographic associated with first-person video games and action movies."
www.law.cornell.edu
