Do people like Connecticut’s Sen. Chris Murphy want to ban all semi-auto rifles or just the so-called assault rifles? If you ask most gun folks, they’d tell you that Murphy not only wants to ban all semi-auto rifles but all firearms in general.

However, Murphy says he has no interest in banning all semi-autos, just “bad” guns.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.) said “we’re not talking about a ban on all semiautomatic weapons” on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning.

The question came in response to a CNN town hall Wednesday where the audience cheered a hypothetical ban on all semiautomatic weapons, an idea that Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) meant to highlight as outside the mainstream.

“I know that there is this differentiation that gun control supporters believe in,” Tapper said. “There’s assault weapons and then there’s all the other semiautomatic weapons, but Rubio’s point—and it’s not incorrect—is that just a few changes, and one is legal and one is not legal. Do you support a ban on all semiautomatic weapons?” Tapper asked.

“I support a ban on assault weapons and assault weapons are defined by state law. Not as all semiautomatic weapons,” Murphy said.

First, allow me to applaud Tapper for actually acknowledging the reality, that the difference between an AR-15 and any other semi-auto rifle chambered in 5.56 or .223 are minimal.

Second, anyone who buys into Murphy’s BS deserves to be duped.

The truth is, there are semi-automatic rifles that operate very similarly to the AR-15 that would be perfectly legal to buy and own. Kel-Tec’s SU-16 series has been out for years. Even older is Ruger’s Mini-14. Both of these rifles fire the same rounds as the AR-15, are pretty readily available, and would be more available following an assault weapons ban, and they’re not the only two options by a long shot.

Further, if assault weapons are banned by state law, we have to ask, “Which state?”

Not all states have regulations on such firearms. What if my home state of Georgia decided to define “assault weapons” as something so ridiculous that the ban would be useless, like branding RPGs as assault weapons? That would definitely put it at odds with California or New York–a position I can assure you that few Georgians would be upset with.

It wouldn’t take long before Murphy and company stepped in to define “assault weapon” at the federal level…and that’s assuming for the sake of argument that he’s not lying right there.

Further, because there are other semi-automatic rifles out there that don’t meet the definition of “assault weapon” at this time and would most likely remain legal, it’s only a matter of time before some maniac uses one of those to visit horrors upon the innocent. Not only do I know that, but I think Sen. Murphy knows that as well. He knows it and is counting on it.

You see, I don’t believe he’s only after so-called assault weapons. He’s after them all. He’s just going after what he thinks he can get right now.

What he fails to address is that the most deadly school shooting in the United States to date did not involve the use of an AR-15. The shooter at Virginia Tech used handguns to devastating effect. He killed 32 people and wounded 23 others before taking his own miserable excuse for a life. Want to tell me how an assault weapon ban will stop the horrors of school shootings?