She is a nut ball. It depends on what you are facing. If camping and facing dangerous animals, I'll take the AR-15. It is one of the reasons I am building another one.
They sell a kit --- so-called “80% complete” --- so as not to qualify as a retail firearms product in interstate commerce --- and then you drill a few holes in the “lower receiver” --- the registered and licensed “critical part” --- and finish putting it together yourself.
You can do the same thing with a 1911-style automatic pistol.
Not illegal, by some obscure gun-rights-friendly federal judge's ruling in a case considered by some and not others to be a precedent, but let’s not fool ourselves, it's not like the government Bolsheviks who already denied, abrogated, and disregarded the Second Amendment aren't trying to put you in prison for it.
Furthermore, the minimum legal hunting caliber in many states is .24", slightly bigger than the AR-15’s .223"/5.56mm, and from a practical or survival standpoint, you do need a bigger caliber for big game.