[mc32]

Well, in the USSR from 1918 to 1920 they confiscated private gun ownership via various campaigns. They targeted kulaks in the early thirties and carried out mass executions of kulaks in the late '30s.

In Cuba they began confiscation almost immediately after the revolution and instituted programs to get rid of all arms from civilians in the mid 60s. Around the same time the government began religious and cultural persecutions.

Vietnam, almost immediately after the fall of Saigon began confiscating guns from civilians (despite these helping them win the civil war). After the confiscations they began securing absolute control over the south especially and began massive persecutions, re-education camps and forced collectivization, etc.

China was more gradual but there too they eliminated private gun ownership.

There certainly would have been more resistance and couterrevolutions and less repression if they had not confiscated firearms from the people.

If you have an armed militia made up of a subject class, and you have a ruling class they risk having to eliminate the whole of the subject class and having no one left to rule over. It would be like having an elite colony on Mars but no common people thus they become the common people. And being armed the militia made up of everyone who's not elite would put up fierce resistance. Most of the professional soldiers would defect. The elite would be unable to manage the armament not have the methods to deliver lethality. They can't just lob thermonuclear bombs as that would poison the very land they would live on and want to control. No, I think an armed militia is insurance against this scenario. We have witnessed authoritarian regimes who before they go on their repression campaigns do confiscate private firearms ownership from the population.

[the_af]

I think you're mistaken about this, because you're stuck in previous eras where the technological gap between "the people" and those in power was manageable; but now it's far wider, and will only get even greater.

Also, no common people are needed, and the ultrarich only compete among themselves. You only need serfs if those serfs can give you something your vast robot armies and robot workers cannot give you, which won't be the case in the dystopian future.

As for nuclear bombs: not needed. You can just starve people to death if you own all the land and all the resources, and you can use neutron bombs which are far cleaner than nuclear bombs, or given enough resources you can engineer a plague/bioweapon that just targets other people and not you.

There's be absolutely NO reason to keep anyone alive, and some guys with ARs won't be able to resist.

It's unwise to draw lessons from history about past conflicts and revolutions, since this wouldn't resemble them at all. At no point in history was there ever a situation where the ultrarich didn't need serfs at all.