Apparently it is. If I can for a minute sum up the high points of mass shooters...
A person with serious anger issues or some other mental or emotional disturbance wants some kind of blaze of glory that hurts those in the community around him. The activity that is most news worthy that also hurts the community is mass murder. Now this wanna be killer isn't in a raging hurry. He can plan. In many cases he has a family that has ignored his anger and pain. They told him things like "grow up, life is hard". He's angry to the point of murder. Maybe he feels like he has an enemy or maybe he's just hurting because those around him don't care, don't have time or interest in him, don't value him...
It may sound cliche but misery loves company. He's angry enough to kill and killing loved ones spreads the pain. He decides to kill as many as possible to spread the pain. To do this you need soft targets like schools and theaters. These are places where he'll meet minimal resistance and therefore continue killing for the longest possible time. He's seen the news and read about the other nut jobs. In about two thirds of murders the weapon used is a gun. Rifles are more powerful than handguns and maybe he picks a rifle to "feel" more powerful. The most popular rifle is some type of AR.
So in essence here, an angry guy who wants to feel powerful and hurt/kill people picks the most popular type of the more powerful kind of the most common murder weapon. Guns are most common for murders. Rifles are more powerful than handguns and the AR is not only the most popular rifle today, it's choice of a bunch of other loser killers.
Take for example that loser mutant in Uvadle. Does anyone really believe that if he had gone to the gun shop and they were entirely out of AR style or every other flavor of so called "assault weapons", that he would have just gone home and forgot about killing anyone?