Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator

This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".

Your estimate of "a couple of rednecks" is off by orders of magnitude. There are millions of AR-15's in private hands in the United States. Those are just a fraction of the 300 million privately owned guns in the US. This country is armed to the teeth.

Still wouldn't do anything to a malicious government controlling the army. And for overthrowing government you don't need to be armed - see dozens of examples all over the world - the army is made of citizens as well after all.

So, no, it doesn't make any sense in the current age to say you own guns to protect yourself from the government.

You're also assuming that the army wouldn't fracture under an armed populace uprising.

Honestly, that's probably a hugely underappreciated factor that would make fighting a war like that even harder.

The CIA also has a document (sorry, I don't remember the name) detailing ways that civilians can sabotage efforts by doing things like holding extra meetings, etc.

I wonder if anyone would stay in the military to better thwart it.

I believe this is the document. Page 28 of the book, (18 of the PDF) "General Interference with Organizations and Production"

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/...