This question makes the assumption that there is virtue or ability in a weapon, which is an erroneous assumption.The weapon is 1% of the equation
The warrior is 99%
To illustrate my point, if you could bring a true Samurai warrior from 600 years ago into a fight , and arm him with a 5” bladed knife, he is probably going to win a fight against an untrained man at arms length, armed with an AK47.
The untrained man is likely not to understand the proper carry of an AK at contact distance. Also he is untrained in weapons retention and in muzzle/breach relationship for Close Quarters battle technique.
But if you gave the Samurai warrior a firearm and gave him NO training at all on its use, many good deer hunters from the USA would defeat him by staying out of bayonet range and shooting coolly and carefully.
Ridicules illustration? Well, only partially-------
There are no “time machines” but we need not go to that extreme.
It’s safe to assume that the average man in Singapore today has NO firearms training. If you go to school of knife fighting and study the use of a knife as a weapon for a year, and then had a man from Singapore “fight you” when he had a gun, and that fight started at 2 feet distance, it’s likely that the man armed with the knife is going to win handily and quickly.
If however you gave the Singapore man a good handgun and a 1 year long course in gun fighting at Front Sight or Thunder Ranch, and had him “fight” a knife wielding enemy, it’s unlikely that the knife fighter would ever get close enough to the gunfighter to use his weapon, so the question becomes moot.
There is no inherent virtue in a weapon. The virtue and abilities are in the man or woman.The knife or the gun are just tools. Tools don’t do work, they are worked with.