If maintaining our heritage comes down to two practical objects, it would be Old Glory and a revolver. (And Old Glory can be recreated and drawn from memory.)
Originally posted at, and slightly edited from a greater discussion of iconography from: American iconography and minimalist RKBA -- If America as we know it in heritage fails. https://catsgunsandnationalsecurity.blogspot.com/2021/01/american-iconography-and-minimalist.html
The Right to Arms is second only to Freedom of Religion as iconic of American culture. And given the private prayer and worship can generally be retained in a Leftist-Socialist state (again, PRIVATE), the outward expression of American culture is not a cross (or Star of David, or whatever), but a weapon. And the most iconic American arm still meaningful, rivaled only by a lever-action rifle, is the revolver. Essentially the invention of American COL Samuel Colt, it spawned the saying, "God created all men, but Colonel Colt made all men equal." Historian John Dunham said of the early Colt Patterson model, "This may be the most important design in gun history."
Exempting black powder models as fundamentally obsolete, the most iconic of this iconic form would be the Colt Single Action Army in .45 Long Colt with rod ejection. However, that model has a fatal flaw in terms of a lack of safety system. However, that form and configuration--that is, single-action rod-eject--can be had today in very similar models, such as the Ruger Vacquero. Such a weapon is both still valid for serious use today, AND the least likely of modern (so to speak) firearms to be banned in an occupied America. In addition, it sorta fits within the long-time Anglo Common Law Right to Arms of the 1688 English Bill of Rights. Though technically speaking the carbine and shotgun are the descendants of the home-defense blunderbuss (the weapon commonly associated with the 1688 right), a revolver of that style has the capability of filling that role while still not rising to the capability most feared by said theoretical occupiers.
Of course, this is subject to reality. If keeping such an arm becomes untenable or requires a counterproductive choice--e.g., making keeping a better CCW arm impossible--then this piece of the operation must fall by the wayside. If only CCW can be kept, and this is held to be inappropriate for that use, then a more modern revolver would have to pull double duty. Both trace back to COL Colt, after all. Whatever the case, the symbolism remains.
