If you have strong citizen involvement in a (an actual) democratic environment, then it’s not the same thing. We just don’t have that now. People all over the political spectrum feel deeply alienated from the political process, because they have little to no control over it.
But I have to agree with @anon15383236 about the power differential involved in those who have large weapons caches and the state. Even taking @shaddack’s examples into account, what was the actual experiences of resistance to powerful military states? Despite losing in Vietnam, a hell of a lot of violence was visited upon the people of that country by the American war machine and it continues to have reverberations today - birth defects from our defoliation programs, for example. That doesn’t even start to get into the crimes of the communist party in Vietnam against it’s own people in that battle. You have to ask not only is resistance possible in such situations, but what are the human costs of resistance.
Plus, you have to ask WHO has the weapons in the population, and who do they see as the actually threat to their idea of a proper society. I have no illusions that a major revolt would not be pretty and I’m not at all certain that all rebels would be on the side that I’m for, which is that of a fully inclusive society. As we’ve seen with places like Somalia, some not so nice people have been empowered by the destabilization of the government there. And that is something to think hard about.
