The thing with these 3rd tier equipments is that big gangs can amass them easily, but lone players can't. Dunno if that's meant to be but if those were the rare items like gauss the economic cap between poor and rich would be thinner since pvp would be mostly waged with 2nd tier weapons. And big gangs couldn't farm and amass rare special items significantly faster than one player.
Still you would be alone against 20 armed guys. It doesnt matter what do they have, they would pwn you even with mausers.No. of players matters
Im not talking about getting that equipment but about using it. What will you do with a gauss pistol if youre playing alone ?