The AR's aren't killing off the deer population. The ability for hunters to kill whatever they see during the rifle season is what is lowering the deer pop.
Hunters can't kill whatever they see due to ARs and those hunters that don't buy a doe tag can't kill whatever they see. The combined effects of high antlerless allocations combined with the effects of ARs are the reasons our herd has been reduced. ARs were the carrot Alt used to get hunters to shoot more doe and now we are paying the price.