The Weapon Shops of Isher.
A.E. Van Vogt was a science fiction writer of the golden age whose contemporaries included Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and James Blish and whose work although sometimes disputed was never the less followed by guys like John W. Campbell, Harlan Ellison and Phillip K. Dick.
In 1941, writing at the beginning of WWII he wrote a series of three short stories which were worked up into a book named The Weapon Shops of Isher published in 1951. Occasionally around the LGC I have seen people mention it. It’s an interesting book. Van Vogt was writing during the period when the Axis was in the ascendant, authoritarianism was the way of the world and things looked dim for democracy. He was defiant and wrote a book I find very close to the bone.
The premise of the book is that an armed population cannot be subjugated. In the book, there is a regime which aspires to be despotic, but due to the influence of the Weapon Shops, places where some amazing firepower is sold and who have some fantastic technology including the ability to appear and disappear on need. The population is armed, and the regime is stymied. The motto of the Weapon Shops is ‘The Right to Buy Weapons is the Right to Be Free’. I see it repeated from time to time usually by some right winger who doesn't understand where it came from.
The Kindle version is $4.
https://smile.amazon.com/Weapon-Shops-I ... s+of+isher
When only cops have guns, it's called a police state.
I carry due to toxic masculinity.......just other people's.