The loss of modern infantry weapons

[kalos72]

So I was thinking last night about refitting a few militia units in my campaign and realized something. What do I arm them with?

I haven't really thought much about it but since there are no more factories running 1000's of M16 off the line, do you think there are enough of them floating around? I mean how many M16's could I reasonably buy from NYC?

Armies of the Night for example has the M!6 as 'common' at $600 per. Does that mean I can go there every day and possibly buy one?

Or am I looking too deeply into the mechanics of the game versus just some assumed "artistic freedoms"?

And that leads me into my next question...What parts of the M16 would a T2k world be able to produce?

Seems most of the parts are either aluminum or steel, which could be smelted from steel ibeams or rebar I guess. Could the receiver be steel too? And I guess we could use wood stocks to replace the plastics, making the weapon heavier of course.

Can you melt the receivers/barrels from civilian weapons to reform an M16 receiver? Or perhaps re-chamber a civilian rifle to a 7.62 or 5.56?