Acid Attacks

with 4 college girls having been attacked with acid in France, the prevalence of acid attacks, as well as their lack of details, have been on my mind. I think in this past year alone I've heard of more acid attacks than i have my whole life. this makes me wonder, why has acid become a popular weapon as of late? acid is not the most reliable of weapons, as to do serious damage you would need to either buy strong acids or leave the area untreated. since the common person can't buy strong acids, they must be distilling them from household items, like muriatic acid or batteries. this makes the attacker have to put in inordinary amounts of time, when frankly they could do more damage with a knife or gun. Personally, i think these attacks are more for statement than true damage. i think the people doing this are trying to stir up fear, as an acid attack sounds alot worse and a shooting etc, or gain public attention. Additionally, why are picture of the attack never shown? is it because the attacks are gruesome? if so i would want to know so that if i lived in these areas i could be prepared. Also, the type of acid used is never mentioned either? there is a big difference between someone attacking with hydrochloric acid vs something like hydrofluoric acid or nitric acid. these details are very important to know so you can watch out for suspicious activity, and yet the media never says the acid used. this is likely just because most people wouldn't know the difference between acids so the info would be generally useless.