John Adams was famously interested in the well-regulated militias of Switzerland for their ability to repel invasions and also for their ability to deter tyranny in their own government. But it’s been interesting to see how this has fallen away from modern small-r republican theory. In the Irish revolutionary period of the early 20th century, Patrick Pearse gave the traditional-republican view perhaps its last and most ferocious expression:
For in suffering ourselves to be disarmed, in acquiescing in a perpetual disarmament, in neglecting every chance of arming, in sneering (as all Nationalists do now) at those who have taken arms, we in effect abnegate our manhood. Unable to exercise men’s rights, we do not deserve men’s privileges. We are, in a strict sense, not fit for freedom, and freedom we shall never attain. It is not reasonable to expect that the Almighty will repeal all the laws of His universe in our behalf. The condition on which freedom is given to men is that they are able to make good their claim to it; and unarmed men cannot make good their claim to anything which armed men choose to deny them. One of the sins against faith is presumption, which is defined as a foolish expectation of salvation without making use of the necessary means to obtain it: surely it is a sin against national faith to expect national freedom without adopting the necessary means to win and keep it. And I know of no other way than the way of the sword: history records no other, reason and experience suggest no other. When I say the sword, I do not mean necessarily the actual use of the sword: I mean readiness and ability to use the sword. Which, translated into terms of modern life, means readiness and ability to shoot. I regard the armed Orangemen of North-East Ulster as potentially the most useful body of citizens Ireland possesses. In fact, they are the only citizens Ireland does possess at this moment: the rest of us for the most part do not count. A citizen who cannot vindicate his citizenship is a contradiction in terms. A citizen without arms is like a priest without religion, like a woman without chastity, like a man without manhood. The very conception of an unarmed citizen is a purely modern one, and even in modern times it is chiefly confined to the populations of the (so-called) British Islands. Most other peoples, civilised and uncivilised, are armed.
Something to contemplate ahead of target practice.