>Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows, and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak.

George Orwell, "You and the Atom Bomb", Tribune (19 October 1945)

We already have the National Guard [1] --aka militias-- which provide ample check from the State level against a would-be dictatorship at the Federal level. For further self-education, one may want to read The Federalist Papers, in particular no 46 written by Madison (see [2] for a discussion of the issue).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guard_of_the_United_S...

[2] http://tracinskiletter.com/2018/03/21/the-advantage-of-being...

The constitutional concept of the militia is universal (well, universal for adult free males, at least, but arguably the limitations their relate to limitations applicable to the concept of full citizenship at the time, not special ones for the militia); the National Guard is a subset of or overlaps with the militia (and is, as it is structured, in some ways, in conflict with the conceptualized role of the militia in securing liberty) but is not equivalent to the militia.

I agree, militia is a wider concept and there can be many such free-formed associations. I merely wanted to mention that the National Guard are also known as militias, and they have always had very powerful weapons at their disposal.

The national guard is NOT the militia.

I agree that it is not the only militia.

Please explain Vietnam.

It is a myth that the Vietnam war was mostly a war between US conventional forces against Vietnamese guerrilla forces.

In point of fact, the majority of the battles the US military and ARVN engaged in were against the NVA (North Vietnamese Army). That is, conventional forces vs other conventional forces. While the VC (VietCong) were very active and played a crucial role in the eventual victory of North Vietnam over South Vietnam, they were never the primary military force deployed by the communists.

Moreover, the VC were not just guys with AK's. They had the full panoply of military hardware that light infantry uses: from anti-tank rockets to mortars to light anti-air missiles. The VC even had a few tanks. The VC did not engage solely in small unit guerilla operations either. Once in a while, they would launch major offensives using coordinated assaults of 10's of thousands of soldiers.

What history has shown is that while insurgencies can cause problems for established regimes, without outside logistical and financial support (i.e. supply of arms, food, money, etc) they usually cannot win.