> This is very close to the idea that an armed population is a backstop against tyranny, but much better implemented.

The last few months have disproved this completely. Literal plain-clothes masked thugs seizing people off the streets en masse, and there have only been a handful of cases of armed civilians resisting.

And I disagree that Switzerland preserved itself during WW2 because the forces that stomped all over the professional armies of Europe are afraid of an armed civilian population. That just doesn't make sense.