America's inception was fundamentally based partly upon the fact that British troops and British conscripts came to America to enforce the British crown' desires, taxes, and to thereby stamp their authority upon the colonists, which lead to the uprising of the colonists, outright revolutionary war, and eventually to American independence. Perhaps, the colonists would not have become independent from the British crown, if Great Britain had not made the fatal error in regards to imposing military force upon the colonists, as opposed to reasoning out the differences between the two parties, which had worked out for so well for so long.
Today, in America, there are two types of essentially "standing armies", the military arm which is utilized to maintain our presence and authority all over the world, and the various types of policing agencies, such as the police, but also agencies such as the FBI, and all those that from the support for such groups. The combined numbers of these types of standing armies are in excess of well over two million peoples, and they are professional, well trained, extremely well armed, with a high degree of integration as well as intelligence, and in unity, cannot be vanquished by any militia or personal-based counter force in America.
Many Americans see the above as a very good thing, but the most basic problem is that when the people cede the armament of the nation to what is in substance, a professional standing army, the question becomes, is this policing arm of the state actually for the people, or actually for certain specific elements of the state, for the difference, between the two, is the difference between a vibrant democracy which has a right to protect and to serve its constituents as compared to a false democracy, in which, the force of the state, answers not to the people, but to an elite status quo.
America has been in existence, long enough, that the answer to the above question can easily be seen by the history of how this standing army treats the heartland of America. For instance, in 1786, disgruntled revolutionary soldiers who had served faithfully for the cause, did not receive the anticipated pay for such service, and because of their unpaid debts, were subject to confiscation of farming lands that they own, so Shays' rebellion was their response to this injustice, of which, the federal government made its stand protecting its armory against this rebellion and defeated them. During our civil war, conscription became a requirement in order to add men to the Union cause, of which riots broke out in New York city, because of the perceived injustice of such a draft, as well as a legitimate protest that not all were in favor of the Union cause, so that these riots were met by federal troops that quelled the rioters by their superior firepower and strength. In the coal mining region of West Virginia, in 1921, the powerful mining owners effectively made it impossible for the miners to unionize and further controlled the activities of the miners by utilizing their own private detective force, so that when the miners finally rebelled at this continued injustice, the mining interests combined with the force and firepower of the sheriff and his cohorts put down this incipient miner rebellion.
Again and again, throughout American history, whether the people rebel or riot, the instrument of the state, is always used to destroy or to control those that are in rebellion, caring not whether their cause is legitimate, but only caring that they are silenced through the power of the state, so that, it is this power, that effectively coerces compliance by the people to support or to acquiesce to whatever policy that the status quo so desires, whether it is just or not. This signifies that when the state has powerful standing armies, well trained, and in league with the justice system, than the people don't really have a true voice, for to voice their protest, invites the full armed power of the state to neutralize them.