You may not appreciate it, but there is a substantial difference, not just practically but legally. If you're ignorant of that difference, that's fine. Everybody is mistaken or ignorant some of the time. We're all human after all. But if you know the difference and choose to use the wrong terminology anyway, then you are being deliberately deceptive. Either way, it warrants a correction.
It was the first example of the Assault Rifle weapon type with the defining characteristics being an intermediate cartridge (between pistol round and rifle round) that allows controllable automatic fire at engagement ranges further than submachine guns.
Most AR15s cannot be considered 'Assault Rifles' as although they are chambered in an intermediate cartridge, they are for the most part semi-automatic and not capable of automatic fire.
Note that 'Assault Rifle' does not seem to be a ATF defined term, they always use the term Machine Gun for automatic weapons. The term "Assault Rifle" is more commonly associate d with anti-gun organizations as it has become a emotionally charged word
Every game I've played where it is relevant uses the "Assault Rifle" term, and way more young people are familiar with game definitions than anything else. Here is roughly how weapons are defined in games:
Submachine gun - Automatic pistol with large clip.
Rifle - Single shot long barrel higher calibre weapon
Battle Rifle - Burst fire rifle with large clip
Assault Rifle - Automatic fire rifle with large clip
Machine gun - Belt fed automatic fire rifle
Edit: Nothing legal about the above, of course, just noting what the general population would associate with each term. And you can understand why people would be worried about automatic fire high calibre weapons. They aren't useful for anything other than to kill lots of people.
And afaik the usual distinction for a battle rifle is that it's larger caliber (e.g. as many cold-war standard-issue rifles were)
I understand the point you were making. I do have to ask people, if there's any difference between the Mossberg 464 lever action and the Mossberg 464 ZMB rifle - I mean purely from how scary it is, or whatever.