Firstly, I think it unlikely that the White House would drop a nuke on New York to quell political unrest/rebellion.

Secondly, yes the gap in power has widened. But just look to the Revolutionary War. The British had the world's greatest troops, and the world's greatest Navy. (Hell, the Queen's Navy was like the prototypical American Navy) The power gap was already tremendous.

I'm not a philosopher on the issue or anything, but the crux of the matter, the thing that makes revolution different from war, is the government does not need to crush. It needs to obtain consent. It wishes to govern, not to conquer, for a government without people is nothing at all.

Firearms are one of the ways the populace can resist in some fashion, can refuse to consent.