Carrying Arms

I was an expert in weapons and explosives in the UK from about the age of 15 to the time I left the Royal Artillery in 1960; perhaps I still am. I have often wondered why revolutionaries do not use more heavy artillery in their coups! However, I always felt that for me to carry arms implied I would use them if I had to. That did not seem right or Christian, so in about 1956 I sent back my last .303 Lee-Enfield rifle and some ammunition to school, and have never carried an arm since anywhere in the world. I did not keep any artillery at home! It seemed the civilised thing to do and avoided my using a weapon, rather than logic, to win an argument. I still think at the age of 72 I could take out most of the armed policement and soldiers I meet if I had to. They do not generally seem very well trained! I am also told how wonderful special forces are, and no doubt they are in good physical condition, but I am not entirely convinced they help very much from a strategic point-of-view. Anyway I suspect that being unarmed, people are nicer to me! This point-of-view perhaps also comes from an old idea in the UK that the police should not be armed, except for a truncheon, a very civilised way of running any society. Recently governments have been changing the rules on the use of violence and 'habeas corpus', and I cannot help worry that weapons training may after all be coming back as a means of self-defence.
All the above applies to the UK, but I have observed my American cousins from afar for many years and never quite understood the logic of the National Rifle Association. It may seem to protect the ordinary citizen, but also suggests Americans can be gunned down by foreigners more easily because that's what the rules say is allowed!
But of course, the rules in the USA do not say that all citizens can carry weapons, and I have never understood how Americans can argue based on the Constitution for the use of weapons by untrained ordinary citizens. I seem to remember in my own weapon training it was openly admitted that most bullets (especially from revolvers) did not hit their target!
The American Constitution actually says and I quote "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." I would agree with that preamble " a well-regulated militia", and indeed recollect that I too was an officer in the Yeomanry for six years - undoubtedly a UK militia.
So my worry today might be that it is not wise for me to be pursauded to carry arms by governments, but that seems to be the drift of the argument at present - rough justice is better than the law. I do not like the argument that says I can use force to win, perhaps because I would be very good at it!