You can't win a gun battle with the United States government. What you can do is to be armed and force the government to kill you (and risk being killed). While Bundy shouldn't have been anyone's poster child for the 2nd amendment, when armed men rallied around him, the government backed down (and gave him his cattle back) rather ran risk a showdown. When the government faces a group of 30 citizens with AR-15's, the government has a choice to make: fight, and a lot of people die, or back down. That's the inherent value of the 2nd Amendment as a balance to government power.

Since you don't seem to understand much about guerilla warfare, let me pose to you a few hypothetical questions, which should also reveal to you why revolutions always end up being absurdly bloody affairs, and why I want no part in one.

Who would win, unarmed or lightly armed apache pilots at a bar, or a group of guerillas with AR-15s? Who would win, a supply convoy full of apache parts guarded by a few soldiers or a roadside bomb followed up by an ambush by guerillas with AR-15s? Who would win, the families of an apache pilot off-base for the day, or a guerilla with an AR-15?

It depends. It's a very simple view of armed conflict that would result in such a question.

It's an even simpler view of politics that ignores the dimension of the .gov having to explain to everybody else why it thought it was necessary to shoot 30 of its own citizens.

There's a very good discussion to be had about the role of government and monopoly of force and all of these things, and I respect both outcomes if argued properly; silly comparisons between gun size though are only distractions.

There aren't /that/ many Apache gunships / the Taliban are still hanging on despite their opponents having them.

The taliban were (effectively) a national government before 2003. Before that, they were part of a civil war to become the national government. They're hardly a couple of unorganized gun enthusiasts.

So? They don't have an air force, tanks, radar installations, anything really besides guns, rpgs, and improvised explosive devices.

It's at least as naive to believe that our government will always be benevolent as it is to believe that the armed civilians of the USA could rebel against the military. I would argue that the second is much more plausible.

Do you see becoming guerilla fighters barely eking out an existence to be a desirable outcome?

Revolutions don't work. America just romanticises one that gave them an illusion of freedom for a time.

How do you define 'work'? Iran, Cuba, Russia, France, etc...

I think a better question concerns all the gun owners vs. said military hardware. That is, if you could convince all of the gun owners to fight, which is another issue entirely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_co...

The situation would be a lot more complicated even if it came to that. What's your point? If we're going to suggest a hostile government takeover I would rather have the gun and I don't know who wouldn't.