Since, as Jefferson wrote in our Declaration of Independence, that government derives it’s just power from the consent of the governed, how could the government have any arm or weapon the citizens don’t have the power to give them?
If this is true, the citizens have the power to have any weapon the government needs. If the citizens don’t have that power, they can’t delegate it to the government.
I vote #1.
It was the issue of forming a standing army which supplanted the citizen militia, that lent the shadow of legitimacy to arms restrictions. The politicos are more comfortable with the known quantity of a military, that while well armed, are subject to being molded.