Actually, the various government levels of the United States have done bad things to the citizenry from almost day one. Looking through history you can see several small "revolutions" that only affected the level of government that was involved with the injustice. It's just that not much happens on a federal level that would be involve the nation as a whole, using the Civil War as an example.

I would say it seems that most of these small revolutions I speak of happened in the days that the local populace could possibly be armed with the weapons of their choice. It would be interesting to do some type of comparison of the behavior of local governments that led to such incidents to today in areas where gun control is heavy.

Plus, I guess it depends on how you define revolution. Some might say what's been happening in Ferguson or Hong Kong is a form of revolution, just mostly peaceful in nature. Maybe it's just that as society progresses the level of the boiling point for violent revolt increases over time. But that also suggests the consequences of the outcome may be greater as well.