> guns were harder to get in the 80s

What are you smoking? There's a great case to be made that specific kinds of tacticool firearms are marketed more aggressively and occupy a bigger chunk of the market share these days, but in terms of pure ease of access the 80s and 90s were definitely less restrictive times for buying (much less possessing) guns in general and handguns in specific.

[Edit to incorporate response to later, now deleted, comment]

> There is simply vastly more guns in America now then in the 80s.

Are you...are you suggesting that if someone wanted one in the 80s, there just weren't enough for sale? Because that's just screaming I wasn't alive in the 80s! The US population has also increased roughly 50% since 1980, and of course we're concerned about access, which is a per capita thing.

>Plus in the 94, we had a ban on assault weapons, which expired in 2004

Heh, you're not real clear on what that thing did, I see. I used to own a few 12 round mags with the RESTRICTED LEO/GOVT USE ONLY 10-94 branding...they came with a legally purchased pistol I received from a FFL around 2002. All the 94 "ban" did was change what the stocks on the new ARs in the shop looked like, and how expensive the old ARs and standard cap mags were...that's it.

>shooting with assault weapons have grown exponentially since

Yes, numbers are what they are. But you're mistaking correlation with causation here. Moreover, 10 drops in a bucket is an exponential increase from 1 drop in a bucket...but we're still talking drops in a bucket. The staggeringly vast majority of US gun homicides were and are handguns.