[rjf72]

Let's take a single eccentric artist and vegetarian of no meaningful background, wealth, or power. By his 30th birthday our artist was no better off and his life's greatest achievement was working as a low ranking courier during WW1. What are the odds that this arist would go on to become one of the most important and powerful individuals in history and one who would come to within a hair's breadth of dominating the entire modern world? It's never wise to speak in certainties in regards to alternate histories.

One of the few things we can say for certain is that tyrants don't like having their targets armed. Would having arms have saved the Jews, the Soviets, the Chinese, etc? That's impossible to answer. But it'd certainly have given them more options and opportunities, rather than fewer.