While following this debateless debate 
about the expiration of the AWB, I got to wondering exactly where the term “assault weapon” originated and when. Searching did me no good, so I come to the geneii of the SDMB.
Please, this thread isn’t about our opinions on guns or bans or such stuff. It’s about the origin of a very popular term.
I seem to remember it being used, back in the day, in reference to the military uzi smg, but I can’t prove it. Gettin’ old.
Help?
A new rifle was designed in Germany in WWII that was a lot more than 9mm Parabellum machine pistols lwith a shoulder stock ike the MP40 but much less powerful than the standard 8mm* Mauser rifles issued to infantry. I have been told it was orignally designated machine pistol because the arsenal was not authorized to design a new rife but Hitler liked it so much he dubbed it “sturmgewehr,” literally “Storm rifle.”
The crime bill definition aside an assault rifle is generally defined as a light carbine firing a bottleneck, rifle caliber cartridge that is less powerful than full power rifle cartridges, is selective fire, and has a detachable magazine.
*For non-shooters the two bore diameters are misleading as 9mm is a small pistol cartridge. 8mm Mauster has a smaller diameter bullet, but one that is heavier and is propelled by a much bigger propellant charge giving it around twice as much velocity.
FWIW The Uzi is not an assult rifle. The term submachinegun was coined by Colonel Thompson for his selective fire carbine which fired pistol ammunition.
I was always told it went the following:
Single shot or semi-auto weapon that could be used with one hand and fired pistol ammunition: pistol
Automatic weapon (read: weapon capable of automatic fire) that could be used with one hand and could fire pistol ammunition: machine pistol
Automatic weapon that is to be used with two hands and fires pistol ammunition: submachinegun
Automatic weapon that is to be used with two hands and uses assault rifle ammunition (that is, between pistol and rifle cartridges): assault rifle
Semi automatic or single-shot (non automatic at any rate) rilfe that uses rifle ammunition: rifle
Automatic rifle that uses rifle ammunition: battle rifle
Automatic weapon that is to be mounted on a vehicle or fixed in place and fires rifle ammunition: machine gun
The key phrase here being selective fire. If it’s not selective fire, it’s not an assault rifle.
“Assault weapon” is a term that I personally did not hear until the bannings starting in 1986 in California. Going on memory, there were arguments that assault rifles were already prohibited (at least in California). Further, “assault rifle” did not, as Padeye pointed out, cover semiautomatic carbines such as the Uzi Carbine or the Keckler & Koch semiautomatic version of the MP-5. It seems to me that the term "assault weapon was coined by politicians to make it easier to ban a “class” of firearms that were functionally identical to others they were not trying to ban.
Based on that, I would put the origin of the term c.1985/1986.
I always thought of it as a rifle used for military purposes, like an M16 or AK47. One that can be fired semiautomatic or full automatic. It may have a folding stock, or it might not. It could also mean machine guns like the Mac, Uzi, or the old Thompson. Somehow, it came to eventually mean any rifle that was made or customized to look like a military weapon, even if it doesn’t have the same capabilities. It also started to include semiautomatic sporting guns too. I guess someday, even an ancient Colt Navy 36 pistol or blunderbuss will be included (just being a wee bit sarcastic). It’s a term that was maybe invented, to rouse the rabble and get votes. It sure sounds scary, doesn’t it.
I can’t answer the OP question of when and where the phrase “assault weapon” originated, but here’s my understanding of the term’s meaning:
An “assault weapon” is a firearm that possesses “militarized” features, innapropriate to any legitimate civilian need, that enhance the potential lethality of the firearm. These include, but are not limited to, the following:[ul][li]semi-automatic versions of firearms that are also manufactured in a full-automatic version (since they can be illegally modified to full-auto fire) []high-capacity magazines []ancillary features such as flash suppressors, bayonet mounts, and pistol grips or folding stocks instead of fixed shoulder stocks.[/ul][/li]
This has led some critics to refer to the law as “The Scary-Looking Guns Ban”.
Ahem…
My Merriam Webster Collegiate, (11th ed.) cites 1972.
But using an electronice newspaper database, I can find it as early as 1944. The term seems to have been widely used in the news in 1950, when the Russians started rearming the East Germans.
A typical sentence is “Tanks, armored cars, light and heavy machineguns, grenades and assault rifles are used in daily combat exercises…”
It next gained national news in connection with Russian-made arms going to Laos(1959). A sentence there is more descriptive: “More than fifty Soviet built trucks were jammed with troops carrying assault rifles, carbines, submachine guns and machine guns.”
Most cites in the 1960’s were about Viet Nam.
There was an advertisement by Colt Industries in 1965. They were showing the new AR-15 that was being issued to the US forces. Six pictures showed how versatile it was. Each picture was labled. “Carbine, heavy assault rifle, with grenade launcher, submachine gun, light machine gun, survival pak.”
All the above were found using ProQuest’s NYTimes/LATimes,Chicago Tribune Historic database.
I searched the archives at the Chicago Tribune and found one article in March, '85 about the Sandinistas which contained “assault weapons”. I didn’t, however, pay the $2.95 for the complete story. Which means I don’t know the context. No quibble with the price, it’s just too much trouble. Maybe later.
So Johnny L.A.'s estimate seems to be in the ballpark.
Well! I got stepped on! 
What is “assault weapon” ammo? Can you give an example?
What I had heard was that sometime during or shortly after Korea, someone figured out that most infantry combat took place within 300 yards or so. That being the case, that made the M1 and M14 rifles with their heavy caliber and long range more rifle than was actually needed. If you could sacrifice some range and power, you could make a smaller, lighter rifle that could also carry more ammo (and make it full-auto to boot). Those lighter, smaller rifles were called “assault rifles”.
So basically, my understanding of an assult riffle is generally a military rifle, smaller and lighter than a full sized riffle but larger than a submachinegun, usually made from plastic, stamped metal or composite parts and with full or semi auto capability.
Through the sixties standard issue military rifles used “full power” cartridges such as 8mm Mauser (German), .30 US (same as 30-06 Springfield), 7.62x51 NATO (.308 Winchester), 7.62x54mm (Russian), etc. Bullets weights ranged 147-220 grains (7,000 grains to the pound). These cartridges have a large case that holds a lot of propellent and were designed to be effective beyond 600 yards.
Assault rifle cartridges use somewhat lighter bullets and have smaller cases with much less powder capacity. 7.62x39mm, the caliber of the AK-47 uses a 123 grain bullet but Russia has long since switch to 5.45mmx39mm which is much more similar to 5.56mm NATO which uses bullets of 55-63 grain weight. The case is much smaller in these cartridges since it takes less powder to push such little bullets to high velocities. This means a soldier can carry more rounds for the same weight. The overall length is smaller so the weapons themselves can be much smaller and lighter. Effective range is less but conventional wisdom is that most shooting is done at much shorter ranges anyway.
Those numbers may be a little abstract so this may put it into perspective. .30 US/30-06 is probably the most popular hunting cartridge in the US. It is powerful enough to take pretty much any game animal you might encounter in North America. 5.56mm NATO and it’s twin .223 Reminton is so weak in comparison that it is illegal to hunt deer with it in most states as it cannot always ensure a clean kill. It’s legal in Texas but most hunters use larger calibers or only use .223 for small roe deer. .223 is the one of the most common calibers for “varminting.” hunting agricultural rodent pests such as ground squirrels and woodchucks.
Hm. Well, that’s a new one on me. I’ve never heard the 5.56MM referred to as anything but a “rifle” cartridge, not some category in between “pistol” and “rifle”. Now, I can understand people calling any military round an “assault” round, but not basing it on relative size.
Are you saying there is some kind of official designation of the 5.56MM as an “assault” round, while the 7.62 NATO is a “rifle” round?
Don’t read too much into the definitions and realize that some of them are very fluid and mean different things in different contexts. “Assault rifle” (not “semiautomatic assault weapon”) does not have any official definition that I am aware of. As far as the US miltary is concerned the M-16 is a rifle, period. The M4 is a carbine only by virtue of a shorter barrel but it has exactly the same caliber and firepower. The Austrian version of the FN-FAL, the Steyr StG-58 was officially called a sturmgewehr even though it’s caliber was 7.62mm NATO.
I don’t think that’s an iron-clad rule. The H&K G3 and the FN FAL both use the NATO 7.62x51 round, but they’re definitely assault rifles.
Samclem, all those cites seem to be for assault rifle. What about assault weapon? Anything on how far back that phrase goes?
I’ve always understood “assault weapon” to be the civilian versions of military assault rifles. AFAIK, it was coined for the AWB to describe/create the category of guns they wanted to ban.
I think it’s highly relevant that in a a search of USENET archives, the earliest hit (in March of 1989) on “Asaault Weapon” is a call for talk.politics.guns in response to all the gun control discussion. The phrase “Assault Weapon Ban” occurs on Sep 5th 1989.
“Assault Rifle”, OTOH, Is found in a post from 1982 (the archive I’m searching only goes back to 1981 and is incomplete for earlier years).
I dunno. Maybe I’m cranky before coffee (I’ve only been up for a couple of minutes – and I’m on the boards already); but I wanted to point out that the OP is asking about the origin of “assault weapon”, not “assault rifle”.
But to clear up the ammo thing…
The 7.62x51mm NATO/.308 Win. is not a “full power” round. Up through Korea, the U.S. was equipped with the 7.62x63mm (.30-06) round. This was a fine cartridge for M-1 Garands and Browning machine guns, but it was too powerful for an assault rifle which was had automatic capability. (The BAR, developed in WWI, was practically an assault rifle; but the 7.62x63mm round necessitated a low rate of fire for controlability . And it was heavier than the StG-44 and later assault rifles.) The 7.62x51mm NATO round was a lower powered round intended to be used in assault rifles. It just seems like a “full power” round now because nobody ises .30-06 anymore.