And yet people still want to eliminate the right for private citizens to carry semi-automatic firearms! Generally, it's the the same people complaining that complain about police abusing their powers and vulnerable groups of people.
In slums, drug cartels found enough of people willing to throw the life away. And as much as they are able to deal drugs, there is no symmetry between them and state. The Dead bodies just pile up.
Armed population does absolutely nothing except lynching here and there. And even those lynching happened with approval from state.
If the gangs wanted to make a stand against the state, they could. They would need to take and defend their territory while increasing their numbers, likely via kidnapping and child recruitment.
That is a pure fantasy. You know how I know? Because gangs historically and worldwide occasionally tried. This fails all the time.
My original point was that there is utility in having an armed populace because it requires government agents to evaluate the risk of infringing actions more heavily. Even if the citizens lose, nobody wants to be a casualty in they're resistance.
It succeeds plenty. The list of successful coups by paramilitary groups is loooooong.
Hell, the Nazis started essentially as a gang.
In the long run? Nah. Eventually the APCs roll in.
It's a fantasy. And it's destructive for the community to replace rule of law with rule of whoever-has-more-guns.
Give me a break, them having guns in no way prevented LE from doing what they wanted.
There is actually nothing contradictory about either set of positions though. Guns don't protect you from cops. Guns are power and violence, and who we consider to have rightful access to it. So are police.
And no, "we" don't get to consider who has lawful or rightful access to firearms - unless you got to vote for the last class of police cadets at your local precinct.
There is a clear development for at least 20 years in the US of more policing, more police surveillance, more sense of a right or prerogative of police to make their own decisions about violence without oversight or consequence.
These changes are for the most part supported by the people who self-identify as enthusiastic gun owners, or people who value their right to own and carry guns. I don't want to try to guess what constraints you may have on the definition of tyrannical here, but this confluence of forces is a negative for the material expression of rights.
What you can do on paper isn't very important when someone can shoot you for doing it and get away with that. That someone may be a cop in some cirumstances and they may be a lawful gun owner in others. This makes them natural allies in many political contexts because of that simple fact.
Without defining sensible gun control and pragmatic measures, I'm not sure that statement is agreeable.