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It is extremely difficult to get regular Army troops, recruited from the population at large, to fire on civilians.
That is a naive and simply incorrect assumption. History of just the 20th century has shown that the biggest threat to civilians is their own military. Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia...one could go on and on.
Can't happen here?
Hooverville.
Kent State.
That is a naive and simply incorrect assumption. History of just the 20th century has shown that the biggest threat to civilians is their own military. Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia...one could go on and on.
Can’t happen here?
Hooverville.
Kent State.
Nazi Germany had uniformed Gestapo. The USSR had MVD or uniformed KGB (remember the bread riots I mentioned). Poland had ZOMO, Romania had the Securitate. None of those were regular Army. The state had to call out special security forces made up of sociopaths and thugs. Ordinary troops wouldn’t do it. Fortunately we don’t—yet—have a large standing force of uniformed, psychopathic “security forces” to put down uprisings. As for Kent State, these were jittery, poorly trained “weekend warriors.” When you give a bunch of Barney Fifes loaded M-16s, it won’t end well. As for Hooverville, had that happened now, the Bonus Army would have been armed, and would have ended in a standoff. Guns were harder to get in large quantities in the 1930s.