I have no source for this but has a point just the same

"I did some intel crunching, it's written in the form of reply to someone commenting that "The Government could just ocme take our weapons, so they're no good for resistance". Thought I'd toss this up here if anyone was interested.

Aircraft Carriers do nothing in Montana or South Dakota or Iowa or Nevada as a few examples. Nor do Cruisers, Destroyers, Frigates, Submarines or pretty much the entire US Navy. Strangely enough, the US Air Force finds it's high technology capabilities thwarted similarly, as air superiority fighters, strategic bombers, ICBM's and such really have diminished battlefield value against a predominantly irregular light infantry force. A vast percentage of the US military would be idle and without mission in such a conflict. That is among the basic premises and strategic strengths of 4th generation warfare, also called "asymmetrical" or "guerrilla" warfare.

Aside that, your assessment ignores basic socio-political realities of the situation that would come about, which is this: if such a struggle were to occur, the military would be at least as divided as the Citizens, in the Citizen's favor. Personally, I think you'd see a large majority side with the Citizens. So therefore, there would be opposing forces of similar nature to the ones "apparently" lacking. Citizens would gain nearly every effective capability militarily, possibly at a lesser quantity, almost certainly with more tenuous logistics and support, but it would be a massive gain in their favor. Aside that, to suppose that small arms and informal organization would somehow be ineffective against the US military is very puzzling to me, as I see no cause to draw that conclusion from contemporary or historical analysis, rather I come to entirely the opposite conclusions.

We've been fighting in Afghanistan, population 29.82 million spread in an area about the size of Texas, against an estimated total of approximately 35,000 individuals maximum, of often limited or marginal military training, who are not appreciable more capable in terms of individual weaponry and useful capability than is legally available to the average US Citizen. What they have which US Citizens lack is largely situational, in that it's items and materials readily available in any war zone, being expected to become available upon commencement of hostilities. With that said, we've been there going on 13 years now, are still involved in very real ground combat operations, taking very real casualties and incurring very massive expense to do so, have not eliminated the opposition threat in that time, while looking at the very real possibility of being there for yet another decade. This suggests we're finding some very real challenges in dealing with that level of conflict given our capabilities, even with the finest forces we can muster concentrated to the task, in a theater of war with policy, strategy, tactics and ROE that domestic operations would highly unlikely be allowed to equal.

Now, a contrast: The United States, population 317.27 million has nearly 40 times the geographical size of Afghanistan and 101 times the population. There are significantly more than 35,000 civilians who are military veterans, a total of 21.2 million (9.6 million are over age 65, 1.8 million are under age 35), gun owners are estimated at 149.12 million total (based on 47% self-reported ownership). This gives something like a total of 11.6 million effective veterans (331 times greater than estimates of hostile militant forces in Afghanistan) and perhaps 75 million additional effective gun owners using the same age ratio as with veterans., or 86.6 million armed Citizens (2474 times greater than estimates of hostile militant forces in Afghanistan) that can be reasonably expected to be functional within a range from basic to professional military operational utility.

Against those figures, there are approximately 1.4 million total current active, reserve and guard Service Members in all branches of service (many with no pertinent mission in this scenario), 137,000 DOD contractors (approximately 20,000 are PMC/PSC operatives), 275,000 DOJ/DHS agents (majority not armed or combatant capable positions), perhaps another 250,000 total Federal agents spread among other Departments, with an additional State and Local Police agencies totaling approximately 1.25 million members to include 875,000 sworn Officers (60% Municipal police, 24% County Sheriff, 16% State police). This gives something in the area of 3.1 million active Federal, State and Local Military and Law Enforcement members.

There are an estimated 270 to 310 million privately owned firearms in the US (of that, 110 million are rifles of various actions, another 3.1 million are NFA registered weapons as follows: 488,000 machine guns and 2.6 million plus destructive devices, short-barrel rifles, any other weapons and suppressors), compared to 3.85 million TOTAL firearms in both Military and Law Enforcement inventory.

This all then gives the Citizens a personnel advantage of approximately 28:1 over Government forces in total, while Veterans (not counting former LEO) have a nearly 4:1 margin over currently serving members of the military and law enforcement. In weapons, the Citizens enjoy a small arms advantage of nearly 75:1 over Government forces (29.4:1 counting rifles and NFA weapons only), as well as 80% parity in military-grade small arms when comparing only NFA weapons against all Government inventory . This in an area 40 times larger than Afghanistan with more than 100 times the population, to list off the most basic statistics for operational consideration, nothing like even a fraction of all the domestic material considerations let alone political at State and Region, or International consequences.

You might think the Government could just come rolling in and take all the weapons away, but I assure you they can not. For one, I believe were they able, they would, but they're trying to attain the political victory of voluntary incremental regulations, ideally toward disarmament, but at least to capability limitation and ownership and location registration, to enhance success of confiscation measures, so to accomplish what they can not achieve through force. In any event, if they tried to come take weapons forcibly, it would get very ugly, very vicious and very violent very fast, with a death toll of non-involved innocent non-combatant civilian casualties that would likely become catastrophic very rapidly. This leads me to conclude they would shortly find themselves out of the depths of capability to cope with or manage the conflict operationally, let alone Governmental operations during it, as well as likely lacking the determination to carry through with the policy under what would be clearly unlawful and aggressive actions resulting in high levels of civilian death and likely the loss of any real popular support for their cause that could have been hoped for. Unless catastrophic casualties were in their plan, which I'm sad to say I'd not necessarily rule out, either.

There's my short analysis."