>>11
They're always going to have superior firepower and the army and police won't be behind a totalitarian government 100%. If you have a large segment of the civilian population armed and unwilling to obey the totalitarian government's rules, the police and military are less likely to want to obey their superiors and many lieutenants will see how difficult it is to implement totalitarianist policies and just give up. Chemical weapons also tend to affect civilian populations more and explosives are widespread throughout many industries, so in the event of a totalitarianist outbreak in the government there will be enough explosives lying around to cause damage to the military, but not to terrorise the civilian population.
It only takes 1 bullet to prevent a totalitarianism from happenning in the first place.