FWIW, there are tens of millions of former US military in the civilian population. Once you've been trained you don't really lose it, you just become rusty. In

FWIW, there are tens of millions of former US military in the civilian population. Once you've been trained you don't really lose it, you just become rusty. In this scenario the AR-15 bros would have a logistics advantage because they start from a state of decentralized resources, whereas the military does not. The US government does not have remotely enough military equipment to control the geographic size and distribution of the US. In a large-scale domestic conflict, the ability to produce more equipment also comes under great risk. The government doesn't have a safe harbor they can operate from in a civil war, particularly one that has no clear geographic split. This severely curtails the use of heavy ordnance due to the importance of not killing the uninvolved populace, since that would only encourage them to also question the legitimacy of the government. As a practical matter, it is not possible to control the US via military force short of indiscriminately murdering most of the population, and a domestic military force doesn't even have that as a realistic option. Everyone knows this, so this is a deeply unserious scenario and the government would avoid precipitating it at all costs. The whole thing is just implausible.