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i fell in LOVE with the M4, but i think short of smuggling it into this sewer state, i’ll never own one until i move.

I dont want to comment on the difference and make a fool out of myself lol, because i know Nothing about guns, just that i love them now.

is the M4 a military only gun?

In full auto, or 3-round burst the M4 is a class III item. You can have one in some states after paying a tax to the BATF and going through considerable trouble.

You can, in many states, own an AR that resembles the M4 exactly, but is semi-automatic (1 shot per trigger pull) and must have a barrel length that is a minimum of 16”. Much more economical, and just about as much fun.

The version of the M4 you can buy in a free state, like TN, is a para military rifle, just as the version of an AK-47 you can also buy is. The true military M4 and AK-47 rifles all have selectors that allow them to be fired either automatically or semi-automatically. With an automatic, one pull of the trigger fires multiple rounds, one after the other. A semi-auto, the type that's available to civilians, fires only one round per pull of the trigger. Indeed, the thing that makes an "assault rifle" and assault rifle is the full auto capability; thus, so-called "assault rifle" bans are actually aimed at civilian weapons that are not assault rifles.

Turning to hand guns, every revolver fires its cartridges from a revolving cylinder that has a number of chambers bored through it, with each chamber holding one cartridge. The commonest number of chamber is six. Just look at any western; most of the actors are armed with revolvers. A semi-auto pistol, OTOH, operates like the Glock you fired with the cartridges being held by a magazine in the handle and fed from that magazine into the chamber for firing, with each back and forth motion of the slide chambering, firing, extracting, and ejecting one round. In general, the semi-auto gives far more fire power than the revolver, is more complex, and is more prone to failure. Thus, many people, myself included, prefer to carry revolvers as close up perusal defense weapons and keep the higher capacity semi-autos at nome for home defense.

Good luck with your research. You'll probably get a lot more stuff from FReepers here and I'll get flamed for some of what I've written. Guns are one our favorite topics. Just wait for an argument about the virtues of Berettas vs. Glocks!