General: "Commander, send the tanks to blast the protesters. They're exercising their constitutionally protected right to carry arms, for gods sake!"
Commander: =|
And it's so easy for the first bullet to fly when there are so many guns around.
As evinced by all the people attacking the military all the time?
This is exactly what happened during the civil war. Union army was reluctant and refused to engage in combat, letting Confederate forces withdraw instead. Some yahoo ambushed a well known Union Officer and killed him to support the confederacy and the gloves came off.
Imagine how quickly knowledge of this sort of incident would spread in todays world vs 1861.
Looks pretty good so far.
Don't be scared about tyrrany. You already have it in the form of two party system ruled by the homogeneous clique of oligarchs.
If private weapons were a threat to the state, they would not be allowed.