The "want to be" gun confiscators would have a daunting job ahead of them

[stanc]

You're focusing on the wrong aspect of the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. The salient point is not that they eventually withdrew, but that the widespread ownership by Afghans of rifles and other small arms did not deter the Russkis from invading in the first place.

No, the salient point is that a poorly armed (relative to their opponent) insurgent group is not necessarily doomed to failure.

That may be the point that you deem important, but the original question was about whether a population armed with rifles and pistols posed enough of a threat to deter a government from tyrannical actions. The Afghan/Soviet experience shows it is not.

For that matter, even the Founding Fathers' experience demonstrates that a population so armed is insufficient to deter tyranny. Colonial Americans were also well armed, and even had organized militias, but that still failed to deter tyrannical behavior by the British.

The concept is a fiction. History proves that.