You need to get out of the city from time to time. I've done plenty of business where one or both parties were packing, yet no threat of violence, no sense of coercion.
I for one, am quite happy to live in places where it is not considered cool, necessary or culturally appropriate for anyone to carry around lethal weapons, on any kind of ordinary basis.
I for one am quite happy to live and work in places where exercising the constitutional right to bear arms is generally not infringed and where the culture around me generally accepts and sometimes encourages the exercise of that right.
You, and few more billions of people in the worlds decided that is "not considered cool, necessary or culturally appropriate for anyone to carry around lethal weapons".
The situations are not comparable. If you and I meet, each with our guns, and you shoot me for no reason, you will be arrested for murder and go to jail. If a police officer does the same, the worst consequence he is likely to suffer is an administrative suspension with reinstated back pay.
That's not the point. Those people were "mere peasants" like you or I so while they possesses the tools to use deadly force they couldn't use them on flimsy pretexts and then have the system back them up. In those transactions you were on more or less equal footing. In any transaction with a cop there is an unspoken threat of state violence being used against you if you are not complaint enough.