But in Iraq they can drop bombs and such, but if they start bombing American cities to fight an American insurgency they are just going to get more Americans joining the insurgency, not to mention they are really just dropping bombs on themselves. If USA drops a nuke on new york city to fight the insurgents there, then I guess the insurgents just managed to nuke NYC. An American insurgency has a few advantages. For one, they can not really be targeted with heavy weapons. For two, they would most likely try their best to remain anonymous, making targeting difficult. Not to mention they would not be very geographically concentrated, making heavy weapons ineffective even if they could be used without being counter productive. I agree that small arms will not be the most effective though, I think anonymous mini-UAVs, booby traps and anonymously delivered packet bombs would be much more effective. I still say if the police can have guns we should be able to have guns though. Although using an anonymously placed pre-positioned gun on a turret that can be remotely aimed and fired from behind the Tor network would probably be more effective than keeping it on you yourself .