Actually protest coupled with armed self protection is a great fight against government tyranny.
Sure the state has all these weapons of war, but there are so much more of us than them. Plus unless all government employees get presidential level protection they are extremely vulnerable to assassination attempts. Any person with 1500 bucks can purchase a rifle capable of killing at distances of 1000 meters or more. Another 1500 for the optics to use it and a few months of training and they can take out Almost any person in government. The fact that the person will likely be eventually killed or jailed is little comfort to te dead government employee. As corrupt state employees are by nature not idealists, self preservation is high on their list.
Small Explosives are easy to use and make and very disruptive. Pipe bomb or predator drone be te cause dead is dead,
Work stoppage, slow downs, non co operation with directives by sympathetic state agents( I e cops not enforcing federal gun or drug laws) low level vandalism of state assets, hiding taxed resources, etc are also effective and impossible to stop.
Also remember that even nukes are launched by soldiers not the president. Many will refuse to kill their own countrymen. Example after the Soviet Union fell troops ordered to kill civilians turned their guns on officers and killed them or during hurricane Katrina some us soldiers refused unlawful orders to disarm American citizens.
If governments where not afraid of resistance by armed citizens with small arms they would not work so hard to ban them in countries with oppressive regimes.