Near as I can tell, revolvers should qualify as semiauto pistols, making the first semiauto pistol date from around 1840 or thereabouts....
Between the years 1962 and 1984 the anti-gun radicals claimed they ONLY wanted to register and ban handguns! “Rifles will not be affected!”
Then they found rifles to be a good target as they looked “military.”
Remember that the claim that all military surplus rifles were “evil” began back when JFK was shot. Then the news media screamed bloody murder about “Army Surplus 5 shot bolt action rifles!” till they got the import of them banned in 1968. That lasted till Reagan changed it.
During the “ban” years importers could not import any military surplus rifles, yet they could still import the same rifles from the same manufacturers IF they had only been issued to police forces.