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Comment by jmpman | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, the population accepted a gun ban back in 2012.

There are plenty of guns in the population - the regime has armed supporters and organized them as militias.

As long as the military continues to support the government, an armed population cannot not successfully force Maduro out.

There are also many Venezuelan civilians who still support the regime. These people would presumably also have guns.

The decline im Venezuela was quite rapid from a high place. The people there must be in shock and desperate. I'm not wishing for violence, but it seems like the rare kind of scenario where violence might be successful. And Chavez was clearly concerned about it enough to disarm people before the collapse happened.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I hear the theory often that armed civilians can't effect positive change, and I don't know where the certainty comes from. Surely it's a longshot, like all violence is because of the ensuing chaos, but it seems plausible when the people at least remember something better.

Dont forget that Venezuela is now a narco state. As long as this goes on they will keep feeding the rich military heads and screw everybody else over. Nobody will do anything till Forbes magazine makes an article about it though (seems to be a weird meme portayed by Netflix's Narcos series, it wasnt till they wound up on Forbes magazine that the biggest of drug lords were taken down by the DEA for whatever reason).

this goes against every revolution in the history books.

Untrue. Read (for example) Erica Chenoweth's detailed empirical work on civil resistance. Nonviolent resistance has a considerably higher real-world chance of success than armed uprising. It also has the huge advantage of leaving behind less collective trauma, giving post-revolutionary society a better chance of sustaining peace.

Even the unsuccessful?

Or the successful ones that just lead to another autocracy?

What are you trying to say? Things would be better if "the population" had guns?

Violence is chaotic, so usually doesn't work in anyone's favor. But a very bad regime might be deterred from imposing some of the worst policies on people if they are armed, because potential chaos could topple the regime.

For instance, it's hard for me to imagine actually blocking food aid from coming in to hungry people. The people waiting for that food may get desperate and violent. If enough are armed, the ensuing violence and chaos might topple the regime.

So Maduro might have been worried enough not to block the food aid if more Venezuelans were armed.

I suspect Venezuela went from bad to worse, and it’s not yet hit rock bottom. If I were a citizen, I’d prefer to be armed.

If I were a citizen, I would also prefer to be armed. I am a good guy, and know what is right and what is wrong.

Unlike my idiot Maduro-supporting neighbour with his stupid, socialist ideas - and violent tendencies! I would prefer him to be un-armed.

After socialism took over Venezuela in 2007 through Chavez the "eternal president" of Venezuela I wouldnt consider any votes as valid. I still remember back then knowing that things were wrong and bad in Venezuela. He was president till he died. The elections were a joke.

unlike the last elections, when the opposition boycotted the election then declared itself interim government

There is a lot more that the population accepted, it's not just the gun ban. Venezuela is the right-winger's nightmare scenario, basically where politicians got elected on left wing promises and then switched to being completely corrupt. The gun ban is just one element of their total coverage of every single American right wing fear. Honestly at this point the biggest reason why someone in America might oppose government situations like universal healthcare is out of the reasonable fear that they will be administrated corruptly to the point where they're worse than nothing.

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