Comment by Esophagus4
3 days ago
I have so much admiration for anyone who protests a regime as oppressive and brutal as theirs.
Just by being involved, I imagine they’re in serious danger. So far, more than 550 people have been killed and 20k detained by security forces.[1]
Godspeed.
Edit: these death numbers are from an older protest and are inaccurate. Please see article / comments below :)
That article says "at least 19 protesters and one member of the security forces have been killed", although that was as of a few days ago.
The numbers you quoted are from the end of the article, which is about the previous demonstrations in 2022.
(In fairness, it's confusing because BBC News articles put almost every sentence into its own paragraph, which I think is intended to help low literacy people read them. But it does make it hard to follow the connections between sentences that really ought to be together in a paragraph, like in this case.)
Oh, oops… thanks for the correction. Must’ve skimmed it too quickly.
Unfortunately we've seen protests like this before in Iran (perhaps not this widespread, however).
Shouting in the streets won't end the regime. The regime will either just wait it out, or clamp down with violence. The people will need to take more direct action if they hope for any change to come out of this - which unfortunately likely means more death.
Without weapons, the people of Iran will have a difficult time overthrowing the regime. This may highlight to some folks abroad the importance of the US's 2nd Amendment, and an armed civilian population - things we take for granted in the US, and some wish to abolish.
It's a nasty, depressing situation. The regime needs to end. The people of Iran, and the people of the world will be far better off without this regime.
I hope the best for the people of Iran.
I disagree with this - there have been overthrowings that did not require weapons in the field (i.e. Egypt, Tunisia), while widespread weapons were likely to cause civil wars (Lybia, Syria). In these cases however the role of the army was key in forcing the rulers out (and in Egypt to replace them), which might be unlikely in the case of Iran.
British India, the USSR, East Germany, Francoist Spain, Apartheid South Africa, Communist Romania etc. etc. The 20th century is full of repressive regimes with even more repressive gun laws that fell due to protests etc.
The idea that everyone can show up at the protest with their AR-15, somehow defeat the state's security forces in armed combat, and that the result will be some enlightened republic is an American fantasy, informed by what's at best a selective reading of American history.
If it comes to that you're much more likely to end up under some warlord. Afghanistan and especially Africa are full of people who are well armed and where exactly that's happened more often than not.
The actual idea is that this will give individual members of the "security forces" a plausible excuse to not repress the protests violently - which can be very helpful in shifting the overall incentives towards a peaceful transition of power.
Francoist Spain never fell, fyi. It was a much more popular regime than the rest you mentioned though.
> This may highlight to some folks abroad the importance of the US's 2nd Amendment, and an armed civilian population
I don't think this highlight that at all. Judging by what has happened so far, the people who have the guns join the tyranny rather than oppose it. Why would it be any different in Iran?
You can look at historical revolutions - going back to the beginning of time - to see your statement is obviously false. An armed civilian population is one that can enact revolution. A disarmed population is one that gets killed, beaten and controlled.
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But what do you do when the most vocal proponents of an armed populace support the tyrant?
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I worry the same - a weak regime is a dangerous one, and I fear this will involve a lot of suffering either way for the people of Iran.
How is that working out for America? Some lady got shot the other day by some out-of-control cosplay militia.
But Americans have guns! They can overthrow a tyrannical government whenever they want! They just don't feel like it right now.
Bizarre that this is downvoted into gray. This comment is simply stating a fact
Except authoritarians can only clamp down in protests so much, working against them is economic and even regional social collapse due to running out of water. There's a lot building against them.
I actually hope western countries stay out, lest it gives support for nationalists to rally