Neko, trolls, lorr, senti, that one kind of lorath, and especially ID-SOL have the capabilities to actively carry or weild these weapons without power armor and with limited repercussions except for maybe the Neko where they might be able to lift and fire a big gun but physics would toss an 85-pound girl like a leaf in the wind onto her butt.
There are also some weapons like the nep
scout canon which while being a PA-grade sniper can be fired prone by daring neps.
Please remember I've put literally thousands of rounds through these systems, often against actual live targets in theater. I am well acquainted with the capabilities of the US weapons inventory to a degree that I assure you, not even Char is familiar.
Yeah, ill give ye that one! I can count the number of times i've handled anything above 7.62 (308. for the layman, not 7.62x39) on both hands and maybe one of my footsies toes at most~
Also I saw
mechs mentioned as a reasoning in passing.
Mecha is more common in this setting than mechs. With, I think, Only
Shasta Corp really fielding them and not really many of them since I stopped working on them years ago due to taking over Nep and then after that losing my motivation to touch the wiki. And they are so low-quality manufactured that tbh if you can survive the radiation-induced super cancer of one being near you it can prob be killed by a particularly airworthy stone or just getting its barely forklift-certified pilot to knock over his beer onto the control console and causing it to explode!