The 2nd Amendment means the Government has to Think Twice

[Lizzie Poppet]

12. It's not that simple.

I assume that by "state security apparatus" you're referring to the military (since the combined police forces would be nowhere near adequate). While it's true that the US military would be more than a match for any conceivable citizen uprising, that presumes an intact military willing to follow orders to suppress said uprising. I don't think that's a sound presumption.

In any plausible scenario of mass uprising, one that involved a substantial portion of the population, there is no reason to believe that members of the military wouldn't support an uprising in similar proportion. That would mean defections, with the defectors bringing whatever ordnance they could over to the other side.

More importantly, it would mean loss of unit cohesion and overall fragmentation. This is critical, because a fragmented military, with a badly disrupted logistics system can't operate and maintain complex, sophisticated systems (like communication networks, air and artillery support, etc.) for very long at all. These are the things that give a modern military its real advantage over insurgents.