That is exactly what all this is about. It most certainly is not about "public safety" or reducing crime. As the statistics point out current "gun control" efforts such as the idea of an "assault weapons ban" (whatever that is) - even if 100% successful would not make any difference.
Consider, if every single semi-automatic rifle was pulled from the streets - note that this is a much broader definition than the typical "assault weapon" hand waving... Even if you got every one, legal and illegal the effect on crime and deaths would be so small it would literally take a mathematician/statistician to tell us what the effect had been after a few years. Because to the casual observer the effect would be lost in the noise of typical year-to-year variability in the data.
So why bother? Because the would-be gun-grabbers think it is potentially achievable. Like the old joke about looking for a lost wallet under a street light, this is what they think they can do right now. If you look at the proposed bans in the context of their stated objectives they make no sense whatsoever. None. We can prove mathematically and through objective real-world examples that they will not work. Some of the places with the worst gun related crime are the very places with the most stringent "gun control" laws.
So have the gun control advocates lost their collective minds? Why else advocate for something demonstrably futile? Because the stated reasons and goals are a lie. What are the real reasons, the real goals? Well, I missed divination class at school so we'll have to make some deductions and formulate some theories the old fashioned way: based on observation and experience.
What we see is a first step. An effort that will ultimately fail at it's stated objective. However, it will pave the way for additional steps towards that same stated goal, safety, while also making gains towards the real goal of disarmament. In a word, incrementalism. When "assault weapons" bans inevitably fail to have any noticeable effect on crime & deaths, something like a complete ban on semi-automatics will be tried. (that idea has already been floated at least once) Limits on magazine capacities. Also laughably ineffective at impacting crime they do serve the purpose of getting people used to having their rights limited. Then perhaps a ban on handguns (a-la several Countries such as Great Britain)...and on and on towards complete civilian disarmament.
Like the author, I am very concerned about what their plans are for us once we lack the means to potentially resist those grand dreams. History and the experiences of populations in other Countries would indicate these grand dreams are more nightmarish for the rest of us. Don't think it can happen here? Ha! Search for "gun control followed by genocide" - I'm sure the people in those Countries didn't think it could happen there either. Let's learn from their mistakes, not learn the hard way.
“Like the author, I am very concerned about what their plans are for us once we lack the means to potentially resist those grand dreams.”
Same as the Turks’ plans for the Armenians.
All evil flows from the same toxic spring.