Well we know what happens when an armed person with malice walks into such an area where everyone but a few guards are disarmed. We don't know what happens when a significant portion of the "civilians" are also armed.
Might be an interesting thing to find out.
"Well we know what happens when an armed person with malice walks into such an area where everyone but a few guards are disarmed. We don't know what happens when a significant portion of the "civilians" are also armed."
Yes we do: Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Also Teddy Roosevelt, who was shot but lived, and Jackson, who was saved by a double misfire of the pistols of a man who stepped forward to kill him. In those days, nobody was disarmed, and at LEAST 20%, one out of five of the first 28 Presidents, was shot or at least shot at by somebody stepping right up out of an armed crowd.
In the 1950s, Puerto Rican separatists shot up the floor of the US House of Representatives.
Of course, since the JFK assassination we have had heavy armed guards around the President, and even other than JFK himself, we have managed to foil the attempts (or, in the case of Reagan, save his life when the defense failed) that have gone after President after President.
Since JFK, there's been an assassination attempt, sometimes multiple attempts, against at least Ford (twice), Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton. There may have been others that were silently foiled. (I don't count the bizarre case of the killer bunny who went after Carter in his rowboat.)
We have a very good idea, from our history, of what would happen if people had an unlimited right to carry arms around government officials. We'd at least match the 19th Century record of having 20% of our Presidents shot or shot at, and it would probably be more like 100%, in this day and age.