“The Federal government has just become too strong to resist with small arms”
What does the federal government have but small arms themselves? You can’t count on the military to back the fed. The total number of armed officers, federal, State and local doesn’t even come close to 4 million and most don’t know the business end of their pistols. 15 million scoped deer rifles would make a mess of that force.
Americans Buy a Close to 1 Million Guns in February 2011
In a SHTF scenario where there's a general crackdown on Constitutional Rights and an uprising by the populace, you forget the criminal/disenfranchised element that would also be taking advantage of the situtation as they are in London. Pre-occupied with those mobs, LEOs could little afford to do the bidding of would-be Tyrants in Mordor on the Potomac by opening up a new front against well-armed Patriots.
Doing so, en masse or even one Patriot at a time, would quickly decimate their ranks leaving it up to state level LEOs, again eventually decimated, and then to the Feds with no more local support resulting in even more local chaos. LEOs, even SWAT teams, are trained and equipped for mostly that: Law Enforcement and the possible suppression of an armed criminal or two, not the suppression of a well-armed general uprising. They also have families to protect and might be too pre-occupied with that to even show up for work.
With our own military having a tough go of it in smaller 3rd World countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, what makes you think the entire US could be easily suppressed??
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, Give me Liberty, or give me Death!"