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You are probably right, but as the 4th estate has demonstrated serially, if a journalist sees an AR it is described as a Kalashnikov machine gun capable of firing hundreds of cinderblock-penetrating rounds per second.\

But for those of us who take the language (and ourselves) seriously:
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire bullets in quick succession from an ammunition belt or magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute. Machine guns are generally categorized as submachine guns, machine guns, or autocannons. Submachine guns are hand-held small portable automatic weapons for personal defense or short-range combat firing pistol-caliber rounds. A machine gun is often portable to a certain degree, but is generally used when attached to a mount or fired from the ground on a bipod, and generally fires a rifle cartridge. Light machine guns are small enough to be fired and are hand-held like a rifle, but are more effective when fired from a prone position. The difference between machine guns and autocannons is based on caliber, with autocannons using calibers larger than 16 mm. Another factor is whether the gun fires conventional rounds or explosive rounds. Guns firing large-caliber explosive rounds are generally considered either autocannons or automatic grenade launchers. In contrast to submachine guns and autocannons, machine guns tend to share the characteristic of a very high ratio of barrel length to caliber; indeed, a true machine gun is essentially a fully automatic rifle, and often the primary criterion for a machine gun as opposed to an automatic rifle is the presence of a quick-change barrel or other cooling system.