The "assault" in "assault and battery" can be entirely verbal, so this concept has been legally enshrined for quite a while.
On a silly note, I wonder if the "assault" rifle controversy could be quelled with silencers. Or maybe by arguing that an assault rifle should be far less menacing than a battery musket.
> Historically, battery and assault were considered separate crimes, with battery requiring that the aggressor physically strike or offensively touch the victim. In that way, a battery was a "completed" assault. Many modern statutes don't bother to distinguish between the two crimes, as evidenced by the fact that the phrase "assault and battery" has become as common as "salt and pepper." These days, statutes often refer to crimes of actual physical violence as assaults.
Performative Hate Speech Acts: Perlocutionary and Illocutionary Understandings in International Human Rights Law <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334199177_PERFORMAT...>