Well, that's a relief.
I'm sure that's what it means now, what I'm interested in is what it meant originally.
I leave that to historians & linguists to debate.
And now, I will bow out of the "weapon vs. rifle" discussion (which I enjoyed), with this:
While every rifle can be a weapon, not every weapon is a rifle. ;o)
And let's avoid posting that old poem that everybody learned back in the day . . . "This is my weapon . . ."