no matter how armed our populace is under current gun laws they would have zero chance against the full strength of our military if the government started to oppress us all the sudden.
While it's easy to say that they have bigger and better weapons, those weapons are still controlled by soldiers who may well have something to say if ordered to train those weapons on their homeland.
It would take a very interesting chain of events to get us to the point where the gov't would be sending military forces into our towns and streets, looking for "insurgents". But keep in mind that there's a 100:1 ratio of civilians to active and reserve military, and that's assuming they keep all the military they've got.
Further, the military machine still runs on things that are produced here. They'd probably have to take over some other nations to supply itself while it waged war within its own borders. Oil, food, parts, machines - they have a stockpile, sure, but it's not as though such a war could possibly be short without the gov't accepting the idea that for every "insurgent" they kill, it's ok to have a few hundred or thousand civilian casualties.
Some gun estimates show that about 1 in four people own one or more guns, and there are nearly enough guns in the civilian population to arm every person.
So while bullets are less than grenades, mortars, helicopters, missiles, etc, it would still not be trivial for our gov't to enslave us.
Added at: 12:47
Yes but pushing legislation that you can spin to make it sound like it could have stopped a recent tragedy sure does play well with your constituents I bet, and after all, whats the point to being a politician other than getting yourself elected?
Well sure. They are trained in the art of saying "It behooves us all to stop our bickering and mourn this tragedy" while thinking, "How many minutes must I wait before I can turn these lemons into lemonade!"
