I too recall the attitude toward AR’s in the 1980’s and early ’90’s . . . they were pricey, and considered worthless for hunting anything bigger than a coyote. If you wanted a military style semiautomatic rifle, go-to was a surplus Garand or M-1 Carbine, or maybe a Springfield M1A, or of course other actual milsurp rifles, most of which were cheaper than the AR’s that were available at that time. And if you wanted a long gun for home defense, a pump shotgun was everyone’s go-to recommendation. AR’s simply were not a thing for the vast majority of gun owners.

But when the gun grabbers banned them (grandfathering in existing ones) in 1994, the firearms community, seeing what happened to the price of MG’s after the Hughes Amendment a few years back, went completely nuts. The price of pre-ban AR’s skyrocketed, and lots of clever people began tweaking the design to get around the ban. So when the AWB sunsetted in 2004, the market was quickly awash in AR’s, with dozens of new manufacturers joining the market (facilitated by the advent of more affordable CNC machines). This caused the price of AR’s to crash, making them even more accessible to more people.

Then came Obama’s looming election (which prompted me to buy my first one (S&W M&P Sport) the summer before that occurred). Then came Sandy Hook, which created a truly insane frenzy to buy AR’s before they were banned. I remember waiting in a numbered queue at GT Distributors (cop shop in Austin) for hours to buy a stripped lower (“one to a customer”) for 4x what they cost just a few weeks before, and any kind of AR magazine were flying off the shelves at truly stupid prices. Manufacturers of AR and accessories put production into overdrive, hoping to make as much money as possible before a ban went into effect.

But after it became apparent that Obama’s dream of a renewed AWB wasn’t going to happen, the price of AR’s crashed even deeper than before, making budget AR’s dirt cheap and thus even more people could afford them. With so many people having them (and cheap ammo readily available), people realized they were fun to shoot (and customize). 3-gun competition became a thing, as did practical carbine shooting competitions and training classes. Lots more calibers began popping up for the AR platform, including ones that could be used to ethically hunt deer, pig, and other larger game, thus bringing even more people to the platform.

Thus, 32 years after the AWB, what used to be an expensive, minor niche gun that most gun owners truly could not care less about is now “America’s Rifle.” The karmic irony will be if/when SCOTUS finds that because AR’s are so ubiquitous, they are now “in common use” and thus cannot be banned.

And the gun grabbers will have been the ones responsible for causing that to happen. Had they left things alone in 1994, I strongly suspect AR’s would have remained a niche product.

Correction and clarification for: “The indented cutout ‘bevel’ with the bolt handle base attached could then be removed after the bolt handle was unscrewed and removed.”

should have been…

The BCG with indented cutout ‘bevel’ with the bolt handle base attached could then be removed from the rear (like we do today on AR rifles) after the bolt handle was unscrewed and removed.

Well, yeah that’s what it was originally for in use but that’s not the original reason it existed.

Stoners first early version ‘design iteration’ when tinkering around with ideas and variations had a bolt carrier that envisioned a bolt handle at that position for a bolt handle charged rifle, the cutout ‘bevel’ was going to be where a bolt handle would attach with a base that matched the cutout ‘bevel’ and attached there, the bolt handle would screw into this base attached to the bolt carrier at that location, extending into the bolt carrier its self a short distance. At that time of those very early ‘tinkering around with ideas’ design iterations the cutout ‘bevel’ was not as deep as it is now so the bolt handle screwing partially into the bolt carrier after screwing into the base was not problematic as it would be on today’s if it was done as it was envisioned. The indented cutout ‘bevel’ with the bolt handle base attached could then be removed after the bolt handle was unscrewed and removed. But that idea went away, and the location where the bolt handle was going to go got changed a little and became the place where “you could nudge it with your thumb or finger”.

https://www.brownells.com/the-trigger-times/how-to/how-to-build-an-ar-15/