No, I'm not missing the point. I think some of you guys are missing the point a little bit. But that's o.k. I 've done more thinking on this and see this is more than a "distinction without a difference".
After my original post I googled "patrol rifle" and found many links to law enforcement and chiefs of police articles, training manuals and guidelines. Its pretty interesting to read them talking about bad guys with assault rifles and having an adequate LE response with "patrol rifles"---when they are exactly the same thing. The articles go on and on using those different characterizations back and forth. An AR in the hands of a bad guy is an assault rifle according to some of these articles, while the same platform in the hands of LE is a patrol rifle. The "assault rifle" is characterized as a dangerous, menacing threat to law enforcement and the public, while the "patrol rifle" is praised as a flexible, all-purpose rifle that has longer range capability, is easier to aim and control with greater magazine capacity than a "patrol shotgun", and is less prone to over-penetration due to how the round "fragments and is easily stopped when penetrating building materials".
The use of language matters. Semantics are everything. Law enforcement has successfully embraced the "patrol rifle" while the public is not convinced that responsible gun owners should be able to own the "asssault rifle". Law enforcement enjoys the short, lightweight, high capacity, multiple optics and night vision modular capabilities of the "patrol rifle". In the hands of criminals and mass shooters, the threat posed by the "assault rifle" confirms the fears of the urban population that (1)assault rifles are bad and (2)what does anybody need that thing for? and (3)that because we fear the horrors visited upon us time and again by mass shooters nobody should own assault weapons or any guns, really.
The reason I like the phrase "patrol rifle" is that it is short, rolls off the tongue, carries a connotation of safety, competence, good guy, acceptance. Sport Utility Rifle and Modern Sporting Rifle are a bit more cumbersome, and don't carry as much positive, warm, paternalistic meaning. To be on patrol is to be a responsible person, a guardian, a minute man, a patriot, in the defense of life, liberty, and the American way.
To have an assault rifle is to be a nazi, a criminal, anti-government, a slaughterer of babies and innocents, a craven threatening enemy on the offensive.
To my ears, law enforcement has figured out a way to better win the publicity, public relations, and spin game by adopting the term "patrol rifle" for exactly the same rifle that is so hated and misunderstood by the antis.