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Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

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Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#91

Post by derefr »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #78
orf wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d think that an armed protest group would mean that the government reacts with _less_ force? Rather than simply deploying an appropriate amount of force to stop them? Because the simple fact is that the government will win in the game of “who has more guns and power”, just as it would in the USA, and there is no way a government would set a precedent that all you need to make it capitulate is wave a gun around. I…

> the simple fact is that the government will win in the game of “who has more guns and power”, just as it would in the USA I do not actually agree with the premise that, in this modern day, governments can no longer be overthrown. Civil wars are not won on the basis of "who started with more guns?".

Most countries you’re thinking of as counterexamples don’t have an equivalent to Air Force One (= near-complete invulnerability for said dictator) or nuclear submarines with SLBMs (= near-complete invulnerability for said dictator’s hard power.) Nothing a militia does storming US land civil or military infrastructure would matter to a US dictator, any more than it would if a foreign military did so. The US military domestic defence system was designed under the assumption that this is exactly the type of attack a foreign military would try, in fact—convincing US citizens (and members of the US military!) to foment a coup, the way the US foments coups in other countries.

Basically, the US president is in the constant implicit position of being able to hold the entire US hostage from a flying doom fortress† like some kind of supervillain. The only people who can really stop a “crazy president” scenario are people either high up in the Secret Service or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who would 1. Have the authorization to be in the president’s presence during DEFCON 1, and then 2. Have the personal trust/authority to tell the president’s bodyguards to buzz off for a minute.

† The “doom fortress” part applies more to the subs than to AF1, but if you treat the two as a unit, it works.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#92

Post by ptero »

chrift wrote: post #69
sudhirj wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing the original Americans did when protesting the massively better trained and armed British Army. Keep their wits about them and keep fighting. If anything the war in Afghanistan has proven that technology is no match for resilience and grit.

I'm confused - are you saying that Afghanistan triumphed?

I think the point is that the US military with vastly superior firepower, organization and funding failed to conquer (i.e., control) the country.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#93

Post by UIZealot »

pimmen wrote: post #65
UIZealot wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A better anaology would be if the US implemented extreme Sharia law, how cavalier would people who don't want to live like that be? That's a very poor analogy. Hong Kong citizens already enjoy the benefit of an independent legal system and don't have to live like mainland citizens. > They sure as hell didn't choose to lose their rights to a fair trial and freedom of expression either. They sure didn't. And they sur…

The protest was about the prospect of losing those rights, starting with being subject to mainland laws through extradition. The protest has then expanded to being against the CCP undermining ”one country, two systems” in general, an example of which would be Gui Minhai who’s serving time for a book he published in Hong Kong. So, I would say the analogy is still apt. The CCP control is being implemented which is what…

> The CCP control is being implemented which is what the protesters are against.

Really? How exactly is it being implemented?

EDIT: Down-voters, can you answer the question? Or are you just going to try to bury it with down-votes?

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#94

Post by rcruzeiro »

swebs wrote: post #59
swarnie_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offence intended, just a stereotypical image i go to when thinking about the US's gun culture and all the problems it brings.

I think the problems are unrelated to gun ownership. If you were to plot the percent of gun ownership vs the crime rate among various states or even countries, you wouldn't find much of a correlation.

But there is a correlation with mass shootings (yes, I know it's kinda obvious since you need guns for mass shootings whereas you don necessarily need guns for most crimes).

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#95

Post by geggam »

LandR wrote: post #75
nodea2345 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full context is police officers often beat protests during arresting. Sometimes they just fight each other. Anyway, I think the officer have better choices than attempting to kill the kid(shot in chest is obvious willing to kill).

I think anytime you shoot a gun at one someone you are shooting to kill, shoot to maim feels like it would be practically impossible outside of movies. But I might be wrong, I've never shot a gun.

This concept you can shoot to maim is silly. Hitting a man is hard if you practice shooting. In a chaotic situation with adrenaline its even harder.

Shooting to hit is all you can do.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#96

Post by ct0 »

mc32 wrote: post #47
kristiandupont wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be misreading what "increase the threshold" means, but it seems to me that if people were armed, the tanks were more likely to roll in quickly, not less.

I see it the opposite way, the tanks become a last resort. They have to use hard power rather than alternatives.

Have tanks ever rolled in on a human rights protest in the USA?

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#97

Post by ekianjo »

kristiandupont wrote: post #44
mc32 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s uncertain what the eventual outcome would be, but one thing is for sure, it would increase the threshold before the tanks rolled in.

I might be misreading what "increase the threshold" means, but it seems to me that if people were armed, the tanks were more likely to roll in quickly, not less.

guerilla warfare is risky business.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#98

Post by wffurr »

swebs wrote: post #59
swarnie_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offence intended, just a stereotypical image i go to when thinking about the US's gun culture and all the problems it brings.

I think the problems are unrelated to gun ownership. If you were to plot the percent of gun ownership vs the crime rate among various states or even countries, you wouldn't find much of a correlation.

It's actually quite clear that there is a strong correlation between gun ownership and gun violence: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-an...

Overall crime, no, there is no correlation, but there is for guns used in crimes, which dramatically increases the rate of deaths and severity of those crimes.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#99

Post by ixtli »

swarnie_ wrote: post #22
nvahalik wrote: post #18

> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".

Non-American here, i never really understood your second amendment or how you cling to it in the modern age. What are a couple of rednecks with assault rifles (which arguably they shouldn't be able to purchase anyway) going to do against semi-autonomy kill droids being flown from a bunker in the desert?

From experience, people who are able to live their lives casually collecting weapons here are also able to live pretty disconnected from the reality of these types of situations. We're long, long past a world where a rag tag band of ideologically enfranchised citizens could oppose the police.

The fantasy of standing up to The Gubment comes from two things:

1) a rambo fantasy. a serious overestimate of your own skills where now YOU are the one in charge

2) a supposition that "if it ever came to that" the military and the police wouldn't actually pull the trigger.

We know this is nonsense from historical analysis. From the other side you can look at how the Vietnamese people defended themselves from invasion and if you really think those conditions exist here then you've never been to, say, arizona where this sort of thinking is prevalent.

Edit: I wanna be clear that i don't think this is a good thing. I wish there was some way citizenry could hold their government to account directly like in the 1700s but I think we live in a different world now. One where people enjoy not having a random street war kick off on a tuesday when they'd rather be at a coffee shop.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#100

Post by trophycase »

empath75 wrote: post #74
mc32 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s uncertain what the eventual outcome would be, but one thing is for sure, it would increase the threshold before the tanks rolled in.

If they were armed this would have been over a long time ago. China would have gone in with tanks and the army, or even air strikes. Once you take up arms against the government that’s not a protest, that’s a civil war.

Air striking the people would be just the beginning, not the end
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