Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyuusai
No single person could stand against the might of an entire military, but even an entire military would have trouble standing against an armed populace.
In the US, the active military makes up 0.5% of the population. Yet with a much larger ratio of soliders to the general population, the US had severe troubles maintaining some semblance of control in Iraq when they were opposed by a small number of poorly trained opposers. An armed populace is a good deterrent, even against the US military.
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If the US decided to go all oppressive on the population, the military would likely be expanded. Don't forget the national guard and police either. Not to mention a good chunk of the population would likely SUPPORT the government because they're not the ones being oppressed, so don't forget civilian informents who sell out their friends for some type of reward. One of the main ways an oppressive government stays in power is through building a domestic surveillance network and coming down hard on people who oppose them. It won't be US military vs US civilian population, it's be US military, intelligence agencies, police, and a good chunk of the civilian population vs a small portion of the ones being oppressed who decide to fight.
Further, it wouldn't matter at that point whether they ever owned guns before. Most of the actual effective weaponry such a hypothetical insurgency would use would be smuggled in by international arms dealers backed by foreign nations that don't like the new US government now with 450% more oppression if such a thing happened. Except for civilian versions of assault rifles and some high powered hunting rifles that could be used by snipers, most currently legal weapons aren't exactly useful on a battlefield. They'd need RPGs, shoulder fired surface to air missiles, stuff like that which are already illegal. Even most of the assault rifles and sniper rifles would be smuggled in. Of course they could make their own explosives. Oklahoma City showed what a fertilizer bomb could do.