Can we please at least try to prevent a large percentage of massacres? I mean, stopping one massacre that'd scar the lives of 10 or 20 families directly and dozens more indirectly... I mean isn't that worth doing? Are we seriously going to say no because of paranoia?
Do you seriously think unavailability of so-called "assault weapons" would have prevented a massacre like Uvalde? That Salvador Ramos would be thinking "oh well, I can't get my hands on an AR15, so I'll just chill at home"? Or would he much more likely have decided to go through with it using weapons he could get, like handguns?
As we have seen from the Virginia Tech shooter, handguns are quite effective in causing mass casualties.
And even in the massacres that involved semi-auto rifles, many shooters used other types of weapons as well, such as handguns, pump action rifles and shotguns. You should not count such shooters in semi-auto column only.
So I am quite skeptical that banning so-called "assault weapons" would make any meaningful difference.