An armed populace does not prevent abuse by the government but the more level the playing field between the government and any given subset of the populace the

An armed populace does not prevent abuse by the government but the more level the playing field between the government and any given subset of the populace the harder it is to abuse that subset. For example, the ability for Seargeant Jerk to feel justified in sending a SWAT team to your door at 4AM on the (plausibly deniable) suggestion of a government official who is highly peeved by your public criticism of his/her policy is directly proportional to how likely that 4AM raid is to go badly enough to attract media attention and the tough questions that follow. It's a hell of a lot harder to justify abuse when you have to put your people and your credibility as a professional in danger to do it. Of course, things could still go badly if the populace is not armed but it's orders of magnitude more likely. And of course the government can still harass people without entering their homes but it's much less efficient. Social media, viral content and dank memes make the people on a more level playing field with the government when it comes to disseminating information and coordinating (yes, this has downsides, so be it). Firearms (or any other tool of violence) perform similar functions but for violence. They serve as a force multiplier for the individual and decrease the size of the biggest group of people the government can marginalize. We don't usually think of information as being something the state has a monopoly over because few states do these days (i.e. basically just north Korea) but if you rewind the clock to back before the printing press all the parallels are there. The state/church held a tight grip on information but not violence. Today things are reversed with the state having near absolute power to enact violence. Holding a tight enough monopoly on either can enable near absolute control.