Timelordwho wrote:
It's not the most eloquent way of saying it, but the presence of weapons in a group does deter authoritarian power grabs.
Not only that, but it also reduces the "us vs them" mentality that many authoritarian regimes foster (and arguably require in order to maintain their power) between their police/military and the civilians. When the only people allowed to use firearms are a nations security forces, then everyone else is "everyone else". Anyone else who has a firearm is a criminal, a terrorist, a rebel, a
threat. They'll never meet these people at a shooting range, or gun show, or gun store. They'll never swap stories, experiences, advice, etc. In a society with greater legal access to firearms, those things don't prevent such police/military dealing with armed folks on the fringe when necessary, but it increases the likelihood that they'll think twice when dealing with people whose positions perhaps aren't that extreme and may not be much different than their own. More importantly, it decreases the likelihood of having such extreme differences in the first place (or at least the number of them).
When people can legally own firearms then you can differentiate between those who use them for illegal or extremist purposes and those who don't. When it's illegal for anyone to own firearms then everyone who has them becomes a criminal and extremist in the eyes of the authorities. It's harder to ask the question "was this guy fighting for the right reasons" when that is the case. And just to be clear: I'm not arguing that the absence of relatively easy access to legally obtained firearms among a civilian population means that a nation will become oppressively authoritarian. Just that the presence of those arms decreases the likelihood of it becoming so.