But after a bit of googling I guess I found the missing context: "Assault weapons" being full-auto amounts to a US gun scene shibboleth to make it easy to dismiss anyone making the mistake of using the term without having to engage the substance, even if many people, including law makers, define the term differently.
"People call all kinds of things assault weapons based on stupid criteria, what specifically do you mean" would have been a far stronger point than this "haha, semi-automatics are normal guns and not assault weapons" game.
Specifically, the assault weapons ban has nothing to do with banning semi-auto weapons. It has to do with banning things like bayonets on weapons.
Thats the point. The only definition of assault weapon, that has ever existed in the law, has been regarding banning mostly cosmetic features of a gun.
> without having to engage the substance
The substance of the assault weapons ban, is regarding mostly cosmetic features. It is instead other people, who are trying to ignore talking about the actual substance and specifics.
This is precisely the problem that people have with the term "assault weapon".
If you are using the words "assault weapon" you are basically saying that you want to ban guns that look scary, because this is what the original assault weapons ban did.