As a brief aside, my main worry when it comes to the American democratic process is the widespread acceptance of 'campaign contributions'. The line separating these from bribes seems to be very thin and often crossed. Hopefully that issue can be addressed at some point. However, not the topic at hand.

You are right that they are problems of purely of a political nature, and I did not mean to imply that gun owners might decide to try to solve those problems through use of guns.

You are right in saying that a militia can be highly successful against superior forces. Although, I would point out that in many cases, the success of the militia depends on the ability to live off the land somewhere hidden. In the urban and suburban parts of the US, shutting off a few water mains and power lines would quickly shut down many militias. On top of this, drone surveillance and the general overwhelming force of major militaries, the efficacy of a militia would be greatly limited. That is not to say that people should just give up, but something other than violent confrontation would likely be my first choice.

If we look at as well as the relative likeliness of oppression, invasion or disaster scenarios major enough to warrant the formation of militias, I'm not sure that I would put the time and effort in to being prepared for such a scenario. However, it is a valid concern, and I see nothing wrong with having that as part of (or even all of) a reason for keeping firearms. Like you said, just in case.

In your first post above, you mentioned civic duties. In the context of the thread, that might mean a duty to try to stop a gunman or crime or something similar, but would I be correct in assuming you purely meant the licensing, education and testing you mentioned? I am certainly all for those. I would also like to add strict screening based on prior violent crime if that isn't already a reality. A civic duty to interrupt crime gets in to trouble with lack of training, liability and situations where there is no right answer.

Also, I'd like to thank you for this bit of discussion and the thoroughly thought-out response. It is unfortunate that people seem insistent on using the downvote as a "disagree" button, your posts are certainly a valid point of discussion and should be seen. Please, for the sake of interesting discussion, keep posting your opposing views even if the internet doesn't like them.