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Comment by nine_zeros | Hacker News Reader

Is this a coup?

Yes. Armed protestors storming the capitol and taking over the legislative chambers at the request of the defeated president is 100% a literal coup.

To which the penalty could be death. I doubt it will come to that, but these clowns are over their head.

Trump will blanket pardon them.

Not after January 20th.

If penalties like this are not enforced against violent attacks that intend to change the results of an election, then America will lose it's democracy.

Executions are more about theatrics than being a reasonable punishment. There is basically no reason someone who's in custody and not posing or posing an /immediate/ threat to life and limb should be killed. And it won't have the effect you want anyway- you'll end up martyring them.

Hell no we shouldn't kill people for this. I can hardly think of a more damaging and terrible way to combat these crazies.

Where are you reading that the protestors are armed? The linked NPR article does not say so. The NYTimes coverage [1] mentions that people posted pictures of weapons on Facebook on Tuesday, but does not mention that the people in the Capitol are armed.

Breaching into government buildings in response to spurious allegations of electoral fraud is bad enough - there's no need to taint the message with embellishment, and doing so gives ammunition to people who want to claim that critics of these events are spreading falsehoods.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/06/us/electoral-vote

Not sure you can count tear gas and fire extinguishers as "armed" (that's what CSPAN is showing and reporting).

Then again, the lack of firearms is probably why Capitol Police are playing it so calm.

I mean my city counted wood shields, water bottles, and leaf blowers during the BLM protests. I don't think either group is armed but we should at least be apply the label consistently.

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/jan/06/georgia... as well as first person accounts on Twitter from people who work in the capital.

If you’ve seen the NSFW video of the protestor getting shot in the neck while in the Capitol building, you would have noticed someone next to her holding a semi-auto rifle (AR-15, my best guess).

That guy is almost certainly police, seeing as he's shouting at the people to leave the building: https://i.imgur.com/teOuPwU.png

https://i.imgur.com/kJZnAHc.png

https://i.imgur.com/zzQWeZZ.jpg

That're obviously the police...

6 minutes ago (as of the time of this comment) the New York Times reports that 5 guns were seized by police: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/06/us/washington-dc-pro...

This (aside from the realisation of how fragile american democracy is) isn't yet, but in the Pa. State Senate they have realised they can just refuse to swear in the newly elected democratic senator and refuse to let the Democratic Lt. Gov. Preside.

These Republicans (particularly Ted Cruz) aren't stupid enough to believe their own words, but they're seriously playing with fire risking their countries democracy in the name of a '24 run at a time when China is only getting stronger.

It should be treated as a coup attempt.

More of a dress rehearsal.

Rhetorical question? If not a coup then certainly an attempted coup.

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