The term "assault weapon" has no basis in military nomenclature. An assault rifle is defined as a shoulder-fired rifle, chambered in an intermediate power cartridge, capable of selective fire and fed from a detachable box magazine.

The United States Army defines and assault rifle as "short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle cartridges".

The term "assault weapon" is a recently invented legal and political term used to describe any number of firearms based on cosmetic features alone. Technically, an "assault weapon" is any weapon one uses to assault another, so the definition could be made to extend to just about any object that can be used as a weapon. Politically it's nothing more than a term used to scare ignorant voters and vilify an inanimate object based on its appearance rather than its function.

Mike