Not that it does any good...

Within gun-control circles, assault weapon and assault rifle are derogatory terms of art, specific to the context of "evil weapons" as determined by those gun-control advocates. It is a dishonest use of established terms with specific definitions and intended to be pejorative and inflammatory. I have seen these terms justified as, because the firearms were used in assaults, the firearms are assault weapons. Of course, using this "logic", so are baseball bats, steak knives, rocks, clubs, and automobiles. The links below take you to Wikipedia for the actual meanings of assault weapon and assault rifle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

Rifles used in most mass shootings are not assault anything. The rifles, usually semi-automatic, fire one cartridge each time the trigger is pulled. Functionally, they are no different from any semi-automatic firearm traditionally used for hunting.

For centuries, the line between personal weapons and military weapons has been essentially nonexistent. Were it not for hoplophobes, today's distinctions would be as difficult to discern as they have ever been. Military personal sidearms are virtually identical to their civilian counterparts. Civilian versions of military assault rifles are nearly identical with the exception of being semi-automatic fire only.

Though often described as unsuitable for hunting, martial weapons and weapons styled after them have often found their way into the fields and used for harvesting game. Hunters have used many older bolt action battle rifles through the years, and will continue to do so, some using rifles essentially the same as those carried by German troops in WWII. Remington has introduced an AR-15 variant, the Model R-15 VTR™ Modular Repeating Rifles, as a predator rifle. The semi-automatic version of the M-16/M4 rifles used by our service branches is also available in calibers sufficient for much larger game. Likewise, bolt-action rifles most often found taking deer and other game here at home are being used to good effect in the hands of snipers on the battlefront, again blurring the lines between personal and military arms.