? The majority of hunting is performed with rifles, though shotguns and pistols do have roles. This includes semi-automatic rifles.

A big fraction of serious marksmanship is done with rifles, including multiple formats that depend upon semi-automatic rifles.

There are many collectors of curios & relics of military and sporting history, which are overwhelmingly rifles.

My brother kills trapped raccoons on his property with a rifle instead of drowning them because he feels it is more humane.

There's a ton of legitimate sporting use, some defense use, and they are used much, much less in crime than handguns.