For 95% of citizens and situations, if you have a handgun, and the other guy has a rifle, you are in deep trouble.
Are 95% of all situations "conflict?"
You can’t take your rifle to work, or to the store etc. Even during a collapse such as in Argentina 2001, or for that matter, Sarajevo in the middle of the siege, people still have to go to work (to get money to buy food) and they need to buy food (in a store or a black market.)
95% of the time, it’s the pistol you will have on you. As ferfal says elsewhere in his book, while you are out fixing your fences etc, you will not have a rifle on your shoulder.
During WW2 we air dropped a small single shot .45 to the resistance with about 10 rounds each. It was called the Liberator FP-45. The idea was Frenchy would slide up to a Nazi, pop one off close range and take his rifle and ammo. So the pistol is used to fight your way to the rifle.