memes

The 2A crowd opposed to the current regime isn't declaring war for the same reasons the people bold enough to cry out loud "please, now is the time to shoot these people" don't find the stones to do it themselves. Nobody wants to be the first. Nobody wants to risk winding up in a sting trying to recruit/join others. Nobody wants to go it alone and end up a crazed, lone gunman that maybe clips one head off the hydra before their own brains are splattered by a sniper team and their family is left with a closed casket and the shame of whatever propaganda gets cooked up to explain their actions. "He was a bad dude. A real bad guy. It has been said he had terabytes of transvestite furotica and a pet cat named Karl. He once took a picture of a rainbow. A disgusting man." Then, two weeks and two fresh heads later, the media cycle has moved on and the world is just a little worse than before.

It's not worth it if they're still comfortable. It's not even worth it if there's a sliver of hope to continue eking out a tolerably miserable existence - "at least I'm not dead." They'll carry on until there's a knock at their door then either go out in a hail of gunfire or hand over their arms and freedom because "False, indefinite imprisonment? At least I'm not dead."

That was mostly directed at OP, who is welcome to show us how it's done. To your own point - Years ago, and probably still, "tanks and drones" was a routine troll over on /k/ and the answer to it is always "Asymmetric Warfare." You don't go toe-to-toe and fist fight the wrecking ball swinging toward you. You blast the tracks off the crane. You hydrolock the engine. You make people too scared to sit in the operator's seat. Guerilla tactics, sabotage, etc.

You also don't police with military drones. You surveil and exact precision strikes. The second the American military launches missiles at Americans in America, we'll have that civil war that nobody with a brain actually wants. In our current political climate I genuinely believe that would kick things off. Point of no return, war were declared, hope you stockpiled canned goods and water because the supply chain is getting disrupted.

As for tanks, you can ruin the streets with them to stick them on the corners but it'll only be a show of force - an intimidation tactic. Tanks are rolling shields for infantry and other equipment, with a few bullet hoses and a big gun to blast encampments and other tanks. They also need those same foot soldiers, willing to kill their fellow citizens, to defend them from folks flinging molotovs or dropping DIY explosives down the barrel.

If you've got a water jug of pre-1982 pennies, that you haven't been bothered turning into pizza and beer or selling for the slightly higher scrap value, and you never stared at it and thought "I could smelt these down into cones because... I just really like the shape of cones," you're not trying hard enough to break the illusion that you're already defeated.