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Your 145 - well put, and I wish I'd been up early enough to see it realtime.

Direct confrontation is not how asymetrical insurgency works nor how Americans would react.

Most certainly not. I've been thinking about this thread since last evening and I've come to the conclusion that the author is unacquainted with the nature of insurgency. Not much excuse, really, inasmuch as the body of work on the topic has expanded hugely since Vietnam.

In the first place, the logistics necessary for a full-flood door-to-door campaign in even a single city are staggering. We know because we've tried it. And if you don't flood the zone right away the targets simply flow elsewhere. I hear about a forcible confiscation in, say, Bigtown and the suburbs. My course of action is (1) sit tight, lock and load, and wait for the SWAT team to come knocking; (2) throw on a set of camos and hit the sticks for some snooping and pooping until the power bars run out; (3) distribute my contraband to where I can get at it and they can't, and look innocent. Option (3) sounds mighty attractive, low-risk, and leaves me in a position to seize the initiative at will. And the gun sweepers can't camp out in my front yard forever.

That's how insurgency works. Because I'm talking to my neighbor in the meantime, who's talking to his. His cousin knows where there's some ammo stashed. My brother-in-law has a friend with a boat. My ex-service buddy has a cabin in the weeds. No Internet or phone lines necessary, nothing for a drone to see. This isn't fantasy macho chest-pounding, it's how an insurgency really works because we've observed it ourselves.

I am inclined toward pessimism concerning the generation to come - their soft upbringing, their indolence, their general unwillingness to put forth an effort to free themselves. That is a very common outlook in history (especially American history). It is also always mistaken.

Nor would the issue be firearms exclusively. A government aggressive enough to devote the sort of resources necessary even to begin such a campaign will be after far more than firearms. And you don't need a firearm to be an insurgent, all you need is a pair of eyes and ears and the ability to pass information. This is not new knowledge, and I am a little surprised at the tendency of persons such as our author to ignore a body of experience that we have gathered at such expense.

Much appreciated. Insurgency is not really all that complicated... it's responding to it that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.

And you're quite correct about the brother-in-law who knows a neighbor who has a nephew; it's that sort of connection that's impossible to prognosticate or prepare against. Consider the strict scrutiny we employ in Afghanistan, in the middle of our most secure areas, yet the insurgents still find ways to a) penetrate; b) kill; and c) collect intelligence beforehand.

It's not rocket science or machismo. A quick look at the numbers, effort and risk involved and it's easy to see that door to door confiscation is not a succesful plan of action. As another poster said, the entire Metro DC area was tied up by two guys. How much did it cost to respond to the DC snipers? How many resources, over what period of time, and what kind of a logistical and managerial headache did it produce?

Multiply by a few more and you can induce paralysis. And this doesn't even factor in the media campaigns that insurgents would wage.

Proclamation of Citizen Command Council, January 20th, 2016
Any military personnel apprehended in the act of warrantless search or seizure in the Central State Region are subject to summary execution. This policy of armed resistance will remain in effect until the proposed cease fire is agreed to and all military forces (but not municipal, county or State law enforcement) are withdrawn.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. My facetiously silly proclamation example aside, one cannot simply discount public relations and insurgent media theater any more than, say, one can simply walk into Mordor.

There is also a difference, often forgotten, between stating that any individual would successfully resist with armed force and survive; and that armed resistance itself would be collectively effective.

Americans, as a whole, have been mostly willing to die for their country and their Constitution. Far fewer have been willing to die for a Leader or a policy, however sympathetic they might be.

I suspect that the most committed and determined anti-gun activist would nonetheless shelter armed Americans in his basement and hide them from inspecting State forces if he knew that refusal would result in his later beheading by the rest of that insurgent unit, were he to betray them.

War is ugly, insurgencies are foul. Shining knights in State armor don't exist, and neither do pure hearted Galahads of resistance. Hopefully some really smart people are in sufficiently influential places to ensure that such a forcible approach to bankrupt public policy, is a really unwise idea.