While this is a nice sentiment, it is absolutely disillusion.
I'm not so sure, given the math...
Push comes to shove, a vast majority of that army of hunters people like to talk about will willingly fall in line when threatened with force from the government.
I agree, but let's look at the numbers. Let's say the vast majority is 90%. That leaves approx. two million hunters. Let's say for the argument, that 40% of that 2M are vets. Now, get into organizing (command structure, commo, logistics, force multipliers, training, etc.), and what do you have? The force structure (minus the toys), of the current U.S. Army.
Food for thought. Thirty three percent of the colonists were against the British. Only about 30% of those actually fought. You know how that turned out.
Think about it. Not as dismal as you would postulate...although the carnage would make the first war between the states look like a walk in the park on a warm spring day.
5.56mm
Keep in mind that IF forces in the US ever turned on the citizens, they have families HERE, and they need to put their heads on a pillow each night.
When forces go overseas, their family is safe thousands of miles away. That would not be the case here.
War is hell; they had better do the calculations before they tread on the citizens.
I won't argue the fact that in the event of a shooting war there would be a HUGE block of the population that could form the core of a resistance movement, or a cadre for a standing army. I just think that it is not related very closely to the great numbers of hunter there are in the country, and anyone how hangs their hopes on the number is not looking at things realistically.