As long as the government has access to weapons of mass destruction and normal people have NO, (not limited by price, knowledge, or maintenance), access to weapons of mass destruction, there is no defense against a rogue domestic government.
A man with a knife will, almost all the time, be defeated by a man with a machine gun. A man with a machine gun will, almost all the time, be defeated by a man with a tank.
If I have the price, knowledge, and maintenance ability to have my own nuclear weapon, without it being overtly dangerous in a resting phase to others, the fact that I may use it indiscriminately, against otherwise peaceful people, is not reason enough to preclude me from having it as a defense against a rogue domestic government.
I wish I had read yur post before I posted my own (56).
Trouble is, once we are into WMDs I can see both sides. There are too many folk I’d rather not see with access to them.
I disagree because you are imagining two views that are unnecessarily restrictive in scope.
First; you are imagining that the government will use WMDs against a civilian population in order to fight a resistance movement. How popular would the government be if it wiped out whole neighborhoods in an attempt to kill two or three resistance fighters who might be living there?
Secondly; you put forth the premise that resistance to a tyrannical government would mean fielding troops in direct opposition to government troops, and defeating same, in order to defeat the government's wayward ways.
Government troops act on the demands of a few politicians. Just a few cups of "Socrates Tea" delivered to a few of those pols funding and directing the troops would radically alter their will to oppress and there are many ways to deliver the "Tea."