Just like how people only use guns for self defence right?

I'm not really sure what criminal would invest in a tank to assist them in street muggings.

Because there are no nutters who go on rampages in the world.

The other point we must remember on the "guns for liberty" line is that the more successful regime transitions over the past 30 years have all been accomplished peacefully, even against rather militaristic regimes. My undergraduate thesis was on democratic transition, and the one commonality of the sample i looked out (outside of Romania) was that the transitions ran almost entirely peacefully. Recent data proves you don't need guns to affect the overthrow of tyranny, and may even suggest that guns are counterproductive to such (because it usually just leads to the armed faction of the opposition seizing power). It isn't the 18th century anymore.

Zomg! We need to ban bulldozers!

To which problems are you referring? Because I'd argue that the U.S. government is so spendthrifty and wasteful and disdainful of civil liberties because it doesn't fear the people, and they've been allowed to do it because the people haven't feared the government thanks to spending most of the past century confusing patriotism and love of country with love of said government.

The lack of trust in both cases that leads to said civil liberties trampling, but also to the acumulation of gun nuts and the general selfishness pervading society

I feel that this thread has taken a rather obscure turn down strawman-argument lane, perhaps we should retreat a bit back to the subject matter.

"Sorry, people! You don't trust us, so we'll just have to take your money and use it to buy weapons with which to bludgeon you and jails in which to imprison you until you learn to trust us!"

Poor old gubmint. They just want to be loved.