Freedom would not exist as we know it.
Hand combat would benefit those who trained, spent most of thier lives training and studying various types of fighting and practiced methodicly since childhood.
To support such a warrior class that produced and contributed little an even larger number of people would have to work more hours for less.
If those people got tired of the situation and rebeled, the warrior class would quickly crush them as they would be vhastly more capable.
You would essentialy have the fuedal system again. Where the serf who must work many hours a day toiling just for sustenance has no hope of defeating the knight who spends most days practicing warfare and has been in training since they were a child.
They also have no chance to defeat the nobles. The nobles had the opportunity for great education because they did not have to work from sunrise till sunset every day for sustenance.
So you had a limited number of educated people backed by those that spent most of thier lives practicing and training to fight, vs simple people that could not aquire education, and did not have the time to learn to fight well in a military capacity. If you were born a peasant there was little you could do to change it. The material for self education was limited and controlled, and most of your time was consumed working for land barons to feed yourself and family. Spare time for hobbies or learning to do things reserved for the warrior class was not available.
An unfree society where it is hard for the masses to change the situation.
Firearms changed that whole power balance. Suddenly the person that spent 1 month practicing to shoot is not a lifetime behind the person that has been shooting thier whole life as was the case in many forms of combat that predated the firearm.
It means those that practice fighting thier whole lives are no longer quite as important.
The warrior class is no longer necessary and disappears (usualy not without a fight first.)
The people are suddenly not so different when it comes to lethality. As a result all members of society must respect eachother a great deal more, even those who are better than others.
That lays the foundation for more free societies.
Bottom line is that without firearms the progress to democratic societies would not have come in most places.
Democracy literaly happens because the more numerical masses are a threat to even the more educated or better trained elite who must concede more freedom to those masses.
The least educated peasant can pick up and learn to shoot a firearm well in a short time, even if they had no chance in a swordfight against a noble or knight.
Firearms were literaly the death of a warrior class in most societies. Whether the knights of Europe or the Samurai of Japan and everything in between. Militias and standing armies recruited directly out of the population replaced the life long warrior that learned to be what they were from childhood (and was often selected based on bloodline.)
That means individual martial capability is no longer as significant or important. So society learns to focus on other things. The elite must learn to manipulate and control through politics and economic controls rather than through the warrior class.
Those that enforce thier will are from the general population rather than a special warrior class.
So it is a very different game. One that gives a much greater chance at freedom to the average person.