USSC associate professor David Smith is quoted extensively by news.com.au about the history of gun control in the United States.
Smith said that ss the gulf between the Democrat and Republican political parties deepened in the latter 20th century, calls for military-style weapons to be available to the community ratcheted up.
“American gun culture didn’t traditionally include semiautomatic weapons – semi-auto‘s were banned in the US in 1994 under the Assault Weapons ban which expired in 2004,” said Smith.
“Since then there’s been an exponential growth in semiautomatic weapons, and that’s been a result of deliberate marketing from gun manufacturers.