Believe the Experts

Way back when, which date I don't remember, an Italian wrote a book on how to get to the top and stay there. It's a classic. It's everything you'll learn in Business school except how to actually cook the books yourself, but that's because book-cooking is something best left to expert hirelings, who can be done away with if anyone starts asking questions.
From the comments here at the Volokh Conspiricy:

"There has never been a case in the history of the world in which a Prince whose subjects hated him did not disarm those subjects, that his subjects may not depose him by force of arms," is a fair consensus. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, "On Castles."

A bit further down in the same set of comments, is a discussion on the VPCs (Violence Policy Center, AKA Brady Bunch, AKA Handgun Control) in which they discuss long-range, high-power sniper (AKA hunting) rifles in which the author states:

300 meters is only slightly less than the length of two football fields.

Lots of good commentary here.