No, it is a technical term used in the Army at least since I was in the National Guard back in the 80s and 90s to describe the M-16. The term made up by Leftist gun grabbers is “Assault Weapon”.
http://www.military-today.com/firearms/m16.htm
That’s a civilian website. I was a 12B for seven years—six years of that time in combat platoons. We never called it an assault rifle. Drill sergeants didn’t call them assault rifles. While instructing in a leadership school, I didn’t call them assault rifles. The M-16 was simply referred to as a rifle, a weapon or an M-16. Granted, even the Army has incorporated some civilian documents in its libraries, including a few minor civilian errors in those documents.
I carried an M-203 for several years and didn’t call it an assault rifle with a grenade launcher. The M-60 that I carried for a year was not an assault machine gun. We didn’t call our anti-tank weapons assault anti-tank weapons. I didn’t call our demolition ordnance assault demo.
Assault was most often used as a verb to refer to training tasks or missions. One exception was the use of the phrase, air assault to describe a school involving helicopters, but even that phrase was an allusion to an action—a type of mission.
Basic firearm safety starts with owner, proper training
By KYLE HODGES/Fort Knox Public Affairs officeMarch 11, 2016
https://www.army.mil/article/164048/basic_firearm_safety_starts_with_owner_proper_training
“As an example of a myth, America’s most popular rifle—the AR-15—is often portrayed as being something it is not. Probably one of the more popular myths is that the “AR” stands for ‘assault rifle’ or ‘automatic rifle.’ It actually stands for ‘Armalite Rifle,’ after the company that developed it in the 1950s.”
Dianne Feinstein and many other anti-Second-Amendment politicians have also erroneously referred to them as “assault rifles.” The word, assault, is the problem in the propaganda.
As with other tools, Rifles can be used for defense or other purposes not including assaults. Law-abiding owners of AR-15s have no intention of assaulting anyone during peacetime.
Some office REMFs have called them assault rifles when speaking of contractor or supply ordnance issues. And maybe some JAG REMFs when referring to U.S. Code passed by anti-Second-Amendment politicians. But 11B and 12B soldiers call it a “weapon” or “rifle.” 11Bs are not trained anywhere to call it an assault rifle.