Of the myriad firearms I own, exactly two are “weapons of war”: a Korean-war-era M1 Garand and a Swiss K31.
I don’t know the history of the former, but the latter was definitely issued to a soldier (from Canton Glarus) and not just stored in an armory somewhere.
At the time they were issued, they were both standard equipment for their respective militaries, and guns similar to my M1 were used to kill vast numbers of armed, dangerous men. Today, they’re considered “safe”, “traditional” guns that aren’t considered to be particularly dangerous.
My AR-15s, on the other hand, have never been issued to any military anywhere on earth. They were made specifically for the commercial market. Yet, somehow they’re considered “weapons of war”, too dangerous for ordinary people to own (cops are ok, though!), and should — in the eyes of some craven politicians — be banned from private possession.
Strange, that.