Ironically, Machiavelli was very much against disarming the populace.
I’m not sure it’s all that ironic. He understood the power game but wasn’t against the people having their own power,and for the people to safeguard their power they needed to be vigilant and armed.
In other words he wasn’t advocating that the Prince have all the power, but only how to play the power game. The advice he gave the prince to keep his power applies equally to any other entity wishing to keep it’s power.
The modern version of that is Alinsky’s rules for radicals - conservatives can utilize them as well as radicals.