In 1810, the 1 in 6 Americans that were enslaved were not allowed to own guns. In another twenty years even free black men were no longer allowed to own guns (varied by state).
Not terribly relevant, but it is easy to forget where we come from and how far we've come in a relatively short time.
the only technological equality we have remaining is strong encryption – um, I can think of too many counter examples to even begin.
The United States once classified some encryption algorithms as a munition and banned exports. – remember to thank Al Gore for having the stones to let that be lifted and bringing us a fine SSL future with secure(ish) commerce in the Internet. (Ancient history, back in his VP days.)
And Al Gore -- besides obviously having invented the InterTubes -- was only reacting post festa. The PGP printout-book was scanned Down And Under (take that Regulators!), and free implementations of strong crypto were popping up everywhere (ie .de). Banning export was useless. If you can't beat them, join them, and Let the Commerce Profit! Recent history, given his commercial interests of the Intertube days (iGOOG Board). The Doors (of revolving perceptions :).
The United States once classified some encryption algorithms as a munition and banned exports. We citizens can't buy tanks or air craft carriers or satellites, but we can legally use AES 256 encryption (at least for now) and we should. That's all we have left.