I hear this argument a lot and it rings hollow to me. State violence is mainly through police, not military campaigns. The Black Panthers were openly armed as a show of force against police. As a result, Ronald Reagan (while California governor, with support from the NRA) put some of the strictest gun control laws on the books to disarm them. If an openly armed group popped up today, you can’t send in tanks and jets against them. They don’t have command centers and bases to target. Even for our high level of state violence, it would be a huge escalation (and unconstitutional) to involve the military. Even with actual military campaigns, an armed population doesn’t just get steamrolled. Look at the decade of insurgency fighting that took place in Iraq. Gun control means cops are the only ones with guns.

Another example: during the George Floyd protests, there were often armed counter protesters and police were brutalizing the protesters while leaving the counter protesters unharmed. A lot of ink was spilled about how this showed how the police were on the side of the counter protesters. That’s almost certainly true. However, there was also a protest in Texas where they showed up openly armed and the police didn’t touch them. They didn’t need to have enough firepower to win a battle. They just had to make it not worth it.