L. Neil Smith writes good science fiction books, but they are only that: fiction.
The real world doesn't always have easy solutions. Sometimes particular problems don't have any good solutions. But if you are going to make a serious attempt to figure out the best possible solution, you have to first be able to analyze the situation objectively.
Reality is what it is, not what you wish it would be. There is no John Galt to lead us on strike, and no Probability Broach to take us to a preferable alternate universe. Fiction can stir our imaginations and inspire us, but it can't solve our problems for us.
You are right though, this is for real. This is for Keeps. And pinning our hopes of restored freedom are not going to come from some improbable series of events with todays electorate. Quite often the Best "solution" to a problem would be for government to butt the hell out. If government WON'T "butt the hell out", well... those Founding Fathers wrote that one in there as well. The 2A and optional Rule .308.
With the current, continuing, relentless onslaught of legislation, and now the capitulatory silence from the USSC bench sitters, the cartridge box may very well be the only way for us to restore our Republic. History, as I keep pointing out on these threads, shows this may in fact BE the only way. No one before, going back to Rome, has ever broken the cycle that de Tocqueville pointed out.
The Founders rebelled against the King for less than what we put up with daily. The system is FUBAR. Time to start over again. Maybe write a clause into the Constitution that any legislator writing a law repugnant to the Constitution, or a justice trying to create one from thin air, will be considered a hanging offense.
Maybe that would hold them off for a couple hundred more years.