Assault weapons are a scam foisted on the public to scare people.

I can think of a number of formerly legal yet now banned (they AWB killed the companies that made the weapons) semi-auto .22s that were banned because of cosmetics under the unlamented AWB. They were no more dangerous than a squirrel hunting rifle, but they looked scary!

The action of the weapon means absolutely nothing, unless you're going to restrict people to single shot weapons. and even then it's a specious argument.