I think your sentiment about the futility of resistance is reasonable, but not really well supported. Iraq is probably the best example here. The terrain there

I think your sentiment about the futility of resistance is reasonable, but not really well supported. Iraq is probably the best example here. The terrain there is absolutely awful for the insurgents with urban areas separated by vast empty flat mostly desert regions. In spite of this, they've managed to mount an incredibly effective resistance with little more than some rifles developed in the 50s and some homemade explosives. This reality is arguably a major reason the current establishment in politics has been working to agitate against the second amendment. It has very little to do with harm. For instance the focus is always on "assault style rifles" yet did you know that of all gun deaths (which make up less than 1% of all deaths) that < 3% of those are caused by rifles? Even in mass shootings - the primary weapon is low caliber pistols. As the UK is experiencing now it's not really weapons that are the problem. It once again comes back to the same problem of people. London earlier this year experienced a greater per capita murder rate than NYC, even though none of the attacks involved guns. --- But maybe more generally this division in society is the biggest protection of the establishment of politics. The 2016 election was an incredibly good example of this phenomena. How many people voted for Hillary thinking "Yes, this person accurately represents my views and feelings."? And similarly for Trump. But now how many people voted for one or the other thinking, "Oh dear god, this person is scum - but the alternative is unthinkable!" Societal division in a republic is phenomenally effective at killing peoples' self interest. You can even make people vote for people they don't like, just by making sure they hate 'the other side' enough. Divide and conquer is a strategy as old as they get.