Thought about this while following the news on the ongoing protests in Hong Kong:
What would it take for you to take up violent (or “semi-violent”) action against a government? (mostly, the U.S. government, since most Dopers are American, but also applies for Dopers anywhere else).
Many gun owners say that if the federal government tries to confiscate their guns, there’ll be a revolution, but I find that deeply doubtful - I think that when or if ATF comes to their home in force, with dozens of SWAT officers, that they would realize they are hopelessly outgunned and would just hand over the firearms.
If Trump made himself dictator for life, would you join in a violent revolt, or try to instigate one?
Is there any particular political cause or issue that you care about strongly enough that you’d be willing to demonstrate illegally/take violent action over it?
(Admins/mods, I am not advocating anything illegal, just asking what people would consider to be their red line at which point they would do so.)
I’m pretty near a pacifist (you couldn’t pay me to touch a real gun) and more importantly I’m a portly man in my forties with no muscles and bad knees. Forget staging an armed uprising, just standing holding a sign for an hour would do my joints in.
So, to get me to take action of any kind, it’s a lot less “the government is enacting bad policy” and more “the government is dragging my neighbors out and shooting them in the street.” And even then the action would be less “impotently throw a brick that doesn’t get halfway there” and more “run as fast as my lungs can carry me”.
If the blues attempted to violently overthrow a president lawfully elected by the Electoral College, I would probably give covert aid and comfort to the reds.
Only if all legal and non-violent means of resistance had failed.
The Hong Kongers aren’t really violent. They’re basically saying to China ‘we will never cooperate’. Which is amazing to watch.
For me it would have to involve the overthrow of democracy, a failure of courts, lack of international intervention (diplomatic pressure, sanctions, etc), a failure of mass resistance.
After that, I’d be open to sabotage. Blowing up unoccupied government buildings, rail lines, government vehicles, mass hacking of government databases, etc. to make life miserable for the government to the point where they decide to give up.
Only after that would I be open to active violence against government soldiers and police.
With regard to this part, I’d like to point out that I know various gun owners who don’t have any intention of waiting until “ATF comes to their home in force, with dozens of SWAT officers”. Really, if you’re trying to stage an armed rebellion, laying back and letting your enemies choose the time of your battle is doing it all wrong. Sun Tzu wrote “If he is in superior strength, evade him” and “Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.” That seems like pretty sound advice to me.
Yes.
Probably various ones, but let’s go with the gun confiscation thing for now.
Only 30% of Americans even own a gun. And a lot of them probably wouldn’t care that much about gun control. I’m a gun owner, I don’t really have a problem with gun control. The gun owners I know don’t either.
I’d wager its closer to 1/3 of gun owners, so about 10% of the country, who are really really aggressive about the idea of gun control. And even among them only a tiny percent would actually take up arms.
Granted you can get a violent revolution with the support of 10% of people. But it would probably fizzle out.
If 1% of the American people were willing to take up arms against the government over an issue, that’s a 3±million-strong insurgency. You think that’d “fizzle out”?
For some comparisons, the Provisional IRA was thought to have a few tens of thousands of members. ISIS, which took over substantial portions of Iraq and Syria, was estimated to have somewhere in the range of 35,000 - 100,000 members.
If gun confiscation happens in America I would envision something like they did in Australia. Buy back period followed by prison for having a banned gun. As much as I enjoy shooting I’d have to think long and hard whether I’d risk everything I’ve built up over the years and my freedom for a significant amount of time, to own a military style rifle with high capacity mags.
If they tried to ban all firearms from civilian ownership…I don’t know, joining the resistance might seem more plausible.
If this country continues it’s drift to authoritarian-ism I could envision a point where I would have to say “WTF, I’m going down supporting freedom and democracy.”
Easy to say now, in my warm home office, beer in hand. When the rubber hits the road…we will see.
a) Some hope of winning; the definition of which I’ll leave open ended until such a thing actually happens.
b) No hope of me surviving; in other words I am part of some general class, or related to such a class, being targeted. If I have nothing to lose (and I have very little to lose in general) why not?
Gun-grabbing wouldn’t do it; at least most days. Too much of what I have and love aren’t even classified as guns and most of the rest was lost ---- sometime in the past. To be frank I can’t come up with something at the moment that would set me over the edge. But I’m over 60, in questionable health, have no kids — so death in a Great Patriotic War isn’t something I would object to.
Given that I’m quite confident that at least 70% of the population would be against a resistance attempting a military coup over private gun ownership (particularly if it involved the military sending troops into their neighborhoods), I have a hard time seeing such a resistance in the light of “supporting democracy”.
Some fun facts about the ATF: They have a little over 5,000 employees. Most of those are office-worker-types spread out in field offices all over the country (the one closest to me is located here, on the 4th floor), not crack commando teams. They DO have five “Special Response Teams” made up of 138 full- or part-time members spread across medical, tactical, and negotiator components, located in Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Jacksonville, and Washington, D.C. They average ~190 “activations” per year.
Almost all of that information comes directly from the ATF website.
I think it’s been established that sending the military in to go door to door confiscating guns would not be the most likely scenario. Australia’s method seems more likely.
Do you think the other 99% of Americans would passively cower in fear while that 1% attempt to overthrow democracy? groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS had to have the support of the locals to get into power.
The military and police would attack these groups. intelligence agencies would spy on them. Large swaths of the American public would arm themselves to take them out, and turn them into the police the first chance they got.
I think you’re overestimating what % of the public are comfortable declaring war on the government over gun control. The vast majority of the population would work together with the government to put the rebellion down. The government and the public wouldn’t take an armed insurrection lying down.
It’s rather intermingled, not two separate groups. A portion of those private gun-owners are also members of the military. A portion of the military are private gun-owners.
The military is as diverse as the nation itself. Whichever faction fondly believes “the military” will side with them and murdersplatterdeathkill the other factions is dreadfully wrong.
ideally the military will side with the government unless the government totally undermines the constitution.
Having said that, women and non-whites make up nearly half the military at this point. I’m not sure they’d be on board with proponents of a white ethnostate (which is where most of the domestic terror threats are coming from).