Political Memes

but the armed masses rising up against a non-figurative army of disciplined professional kills has essentially never panned out.

There's a lot that can be done with guns without overthrowing the government, but also I can name Syria and Yemen in the 21st century alone, and beyond that this is basically what Latin American Caudillos did.

The National Guard in France, the Red Army in Russia, the Continental Army in America, the People's Liberation Army in China, literally no revolution succeeds by just having randos with guns overthrow the government.

I don't know about China, but Russia's Red Army and France's National Guard both started out as randos with guns. Any rebel army will have to organize itself like an army, but what does that have to do with your argument?

That is, respectively, (1) a civil war, or (2) a coup d'état.

Revolutions can intersect with both of these things.