why were nearly ALL governments so keen on arming civilians in the past, and why are nearly ALL of them so keen on disarming us now? are there historical reasons for this, and what's changed since then?

Sorry, we don't allow throughout history questions. These tend to produce threads which are collections of trivia, not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about a historical event or period or person, please feel free to re-compose your question and submit it again.