What is an assault rifle?
As far as what an assault rifle is, it's basically a rifle capable of burst fire or automatic fire (it's a bit more complicated than that but that's the basic idea). Rittenhouse's AR (and virtually all civilian owned firearms for that matter) are not capable of burst or automatic fire and are not assault rifles.
This is only half-true. The difference between a pistol and a rifle is whether it has a stock. The difference between a normal rifle and a short-barreled rifle is whether the barrel is 16" or not.
I'm not saying it makes more sense, but that is the classification the ATF uses. Never put a stock on any weapon with less than a 16" barrel, unless you're really, really, really sure you fall under some kind of exemption (i.e. that might not apply to black powder weapons).
Most hunting rifles for e.g. deer rifles fire larger caliber rounds than the rifle in question in the case. Perhaps you're being sarcastic, but "big" does not necessarily mean "more deadly", nor does "big" actually apply to this rifle.
The ATF makes these rules, and currently (my understanding, haven't looked in a while to see if anything changed with the new administration) an AR pistol is something that's less than 26" overall with a barrel of less than 16". There's also rules about how you can't put an actual buttstock on it (but you can put a "brace" ... the definition of which can be confusing). Anything shorter than that and does have an actual stuck is an SBR (short-barrel rifle) and you need an ATF tax stamp for that.
The "messaging"??
The only thing wrong with the "messaging" was that every single citizen of Kenosha didn't show up with AR-15s to ensure all of the out-of-towners weren't able to burn down anything, or try to assault anyone.
If you can spend time to riot, you can spend time filling out resumes for a job. I don't have time to fucking riot... I'm too busy working. These people should have been too. You wanna make the world better for people? Tell them to stop committing sexual assault and stealing people's SUVs. If Jacob Blake hadn't been doing those things, he wouldn't have had a warrant out for his arrest, he wouldn't have been shot for trying to go for his knife, Kenosha wouldn't have had rioting, Joseph Kiddiediddler and Dumbshit Skaterboi would still be alive, the prosecution's star witness would still have his bicep, and Kyle Rittenhouse wouldn't be in this mess.
Amazing how two people had to die, and two others had their lives ruined, and we had hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage, all because a black man in Kenosha thinks he doesn't have to obey the law, only to find out very dramatically that he will in fact obey the law.
It's almost like obeying society's law results in a harmonious society!
Yeah, exactly. ""Assault"" rifles are defined entirely by your emotional response to seeing it. It's a concept invented by the media.