Comments:

“If anything else is miss-used to cause harm, then folks demand the individual be held responsible. If a firearm is miss-used to cause harm, the some people blame the firearm.” – GunznGear

“I think that a lot of this effect is to do with the aggressive style of the ‘tactical’ type of firearms, rather than the fact that they are guns.
I would imagine that some people would have quite different views on the purchase of an over-and-under shotgun for clay target shooting than they would with a camouflaged AR with lights, lasers and optics. The shotgun is associated with a recognized sport, whereas an assault rifle platform is associated mainly with serious military operations.” – waveman1500

“Firearms like the AR-15 are designed to protect – protect good people from bad people – and if you met one of those bad people, you would wish you had one of those Ar-15s.” – kz2448