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The idea of the rifle being more important as a club or as a stick to hold a knife was common not so many years ago. When my father went through boot camp in the Navy in 1944, he was taught that if his bayonet got stuck in an opponent and he couldn't get it out that he should shoot it out, the assumption being among his trainers that at close quarters he would use the bayonet in preference to firing a shot. His question, the same that most of us would ask, was "why would you be using your bayonet if you still had a round left?" Not that he dared ask such a question. I gather the boot camp instructors in those days didn't encourage questions.
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