The writer commits a common fallacy: " In 1791, that check meant arming the citizens with rifles and muskets. Those were the effective tools of the revolution

The writer commits a common fallacy: " In 1791, that check meant arming the citizens with rifles and muskets. Those were the effective tools of the revolution back then. But since we started rolling tanks, bombers, and aircraft carries off the assembly lines, the citizens ability to match power with our potentially 'tyrannical' government is nil." To be clear, a bunch of farmers with muskets in the late 18th Century were not capable of beating a late 18th Century military in the field, or "match power" with it. Armies weren't formed for kicks, guys: they were by far the most powerful means of projecting force of the day. We mythologize the American Revolution as being a bunch of sharp-shooters who beat the dumb redcoats by not being an army, but that's not true. We had to form an army, with artillery and cavalry support, with discipline, that formed into ranks and did army things, to win the Revolution. We also used people with experience in the British Army to form the Colonial Army, and got plenty of help from the French and the Germans. What a militia of disorganized people with guns could do, then and just as much now, is provide a visible, nettling presence to occupiers that allowed an actual rebellion to form around them (or, more likely, fail to form around them). Our disastrous adventure in Iraq should make it perfectly clear to anyone doubting it that tanks, aircraft, and cruise missiles do NOT make a militia irrelevant to the occupation of a country.