Earlier quoted context omitted.
>"small arms" are now basically ineffective arms Are you sure? Half of the grunts in an US infantry platoon carry only weapons (specifically the M-4) available to civilians. Civilians' having small arms greatly increases the number of soldiers needed to repress them, and the more soldiers needed, the more likely soldiers will revolt against the repression.
The M4 is not available to civilians. And don't try to tell me an AR-15 is the same thing as an M4. What does the other half of the platoon carry? The argument here seems to be that civilians do not have an effective counter for an F-35. Or a B-52. Or an M1 Abrams.
For all intents and purposes, they are the same. An M4 has a barrel that is 1.5" shorter than most civilian AR15s and it has a 3-round burst setting that is almost never used because it's worthless.
I've spent a considerable amount of time behind both of them and I assure you they are functionally identical in basically every real-world use case.