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.

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.

> China would have gone in with tanks and the army, or even air strikes

Thereby ruining the very thing they want to control and profit from.

That's the thing that the "They'll just send in the army, LOL" folks don't seem to get: bombed out cities and a population under armed guard aren't very economically productive and, on top of that, you need to station military units there to keep a lid on things which is also costly.