You are absolutely right in that respect. One of the things you hear people in our streets talk about is the impossibility of the average citizen to do anything about it. If the government controls the military, it controls everything, given that no regular people are allowed by law to bear arms. Then, the government creates a militia and additional shock troops made up of common criminals, you go figure...
As you rightly put it, we are defenseless. My university stopped protesting years ago when we had to face armed brutes only with our posters and ideas. And, we were labeled terrorists, anyway.