Returning small arms fire was a fair fight in 1789, but today it won't help. Instead, our country's levels of private gun ownership, the highest in the world, serve rather then prevent totalitarianism. Guns are both a symptom of and a further cause for our culture's distrust of others. Guns won't stop corporate or government abuse. Massive numbers of people, working together, refusing to consent to their own enslavement, will.
Guns discourage that.
Our culture is one of the worst in the world for knowing how to work together. Our willingness to do that is crippling us. We're pointing those massive numbers of guns at each other. We're also providing justification for the use of even more violence and bigger kill toys for cops. If I were a would-be modern despot wanting to crush dissent, I'd want the rabble to have lots and lots of guns, all pointed at each other, all protecting what little they have, rather than demanding more.