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

> 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".

If HK'ers had a similar right to carry guns, do you honestly believe that they would be any better off right now?

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.

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

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’m not saying that the outcome would be the protesters would not be successful, in saying that the government would roll in the tanks immediately and without hesitation.

> 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.

"By Dawn's Early Light" is a movie with James Earl Jones as "Alice" the general aboard an EC-135 carrying out the "Looking Glass" mission (a 24/7 airborne command and control, now obsoleted) after a surprise attack. Jones' character decides to ram Air Force One to eliminate the hawkish Secretary of the Interior who has assumed the role of President - and thus resolve a deadlock so that the actual President (who has survived, badly wounded and unable to prove his identity to those aboard Air Force One) can countermand US forces and prevent a retaliatory strike which would inevitably cause World War III.

It's made for TV but I thought it did a surprisingly good job. I don't know whether you actually could chase and collide with the plane normally designated Air Force One in an EC-135, but certainly I'd bet on military pilots to give it their best shot if their commander explained the consequences otherwise.