During the January 6th insurrection, why didn't the insurgents use their guns?

My opinion is that the vast majority of them are cowards and guns are part of this elaborate, poser cosplay they insist is a revolution.

Here in Massachusetts recently, a handful of supposed militia types (the Moors-something) were confronted by State Police after their car broke down. They said they were anti-government and on their way to military-style training in New Hampshire. They were armed to the teeth.

When confronted by State Police, a bunch of them gave up immediately and the others fled.

No one opened fire. No use of their amazing tactical skills and training.

All bark. No bite (thankfully).

Like those guys — full of crap.

Two of the rules of proper gun play are:
Always be sure of your target.
Always shoot to kill.

They couldn’t do either one.

It is simply proof that actual planned insurrection was laughable in the hands of the poor stooges responsible.

They managed to do plenty of violence without using their guns though!

Some guesses:

The majority of them needed to believe they weren’t violent, they think they were just protestors. A man next to the woman who was shot tried to warn her there were armed men on the other side of the door with guns drawn.

There were plenty of people who were violent. In my opinion they were all violent, because they stuck with the crowd. Sometimes when I watch men with adrenaline coursing through their body they just seem to need to release it physically. Shooting a gun doesn’t do that like throwing fists and objects.

Plus, I do think @kritiper has a point. Who were they going to shoot at? Were they willing to risk going to prison for life or be given a death sentence?

QAnon did talk about rising up like they were willing to fight to the death, but in the end they were immature, unorganized, and like adolescents and out of control and illogical lunatics.

I wonder if they were told by someone that, if they shot, there would certainly be return fire.

They may have been stupid but no one is that stupid.

“They certainly had them with them.” How do you come to that conclusion? I realize that this is not the forum for any rational discussion but ‘Insurrection’ is not what happened. It was a protest of the vote confirm the election results. If you can’t oppose the confirmation why would they have a vote? Democrats have voted against it in the past and I’m sure will do so again in the future. I can only assume you use the word insurrection over and over to try and make it true. The protest became more violent than I would like to see but so did many of the protests throughout the year.

The only difference between the Jan 6th protest and the protests outside the Whitehouse was the police response. Let’s try and keep things in proportion.

^Glad you didn’t call it a peaceful lovefest.

@Jaxk You call that attack a protest, really? Does that sound proportional to you?

Proportional to what? The protesters didn’t kill anyone unlike the protests across the country last year. Nothing was burned to the ground unlike the protests across the country last year. Damage to property estimated at a couple $million while the protests across the country estimated in the $Billions. I’ll give the point that the protests last year were not comparable but it is because the protests last year were much more violent and destructive than the Capital protest.

That isn’t the ONLY difference. The difference between OUTSIDE the White House and INSIDE the House chamber and offices is the difference between a misdemeanor and 8 to 10 years in a Federal prison.

@Jaxk The word is “Capitol.”

And you’re being a jerk. Armed insurrection against the government in the People’s House is quite different from protests in cities in which some of the people turned violent. No right thinking American should defend violence against lawmakers and destruction by thugs in the seat of the government – whatever else has occurred in other parts of the country.

@Jaxk Have you watched an hour of the footage from that day? I seriously mean an hour. Not a 3 minute clip here and there showing whatever a particular media person wants you to see.

I’m with you that some of the violence and destruction that happened in Chicago and Portland by looters and people who just were on a destruction rampage are completely ignored by a lot of Democrats, BUT to play down what happened at the Capitol is not understandable to me. They were crawling all over and inside the Capitol building, they seriously hurt police officers and threatened them, they broke windows, destroyed other property, threatened the vice president. What footage of film are you watching? It was not a few people who did some harm and the rest of the crowd were calm protestors. Hundreds, probably thousands, of them were on the property climbing the walls.

I guess they didn’t need to with the police there helping them get in. Not sure why police still think right-wing extremists are their buddies. Many are just as anti-authority as left-wing extremists and have no love for the police. (And maybe they are beginning to see the lie of that after some were beaten by those protesters).

@Demosthenes I have no idea about police letting them in, but all I can say is anyone there in that crowd who didn’t think, hey this is getting out of control I don’t want to be a part of it, is guilty of a crime in my opinion. There probably were protestors there who only wanted to hold up a sign and be present, but when those people saw the crowd walking onto Capitol property and started seeing the violence and destruction, I know I would have left and gone back to my hotel just like if I am with a friend and they choose to shoplift I am out of there. I am not their friend.

hey this is getting out of control I don’t want to be a part of it, is guilty of a crime in my opinion.

The problem is, when you’re in a mob you’re a lot less likely to think those kinds of prudent thoughts. You just become part of the mob and do what the mob does.

@Demosthenes That’s right. That is what I have been saying about wearing a mask, not wearing a mask, drinking because your friends do, getting a vaccine, toilet papering a person’s house because your friends are doing it…it doesn’t matter. These are adults not 15 year olds. I am not saying someone who was outside of the boundaries of the property, outside of the original barricaded area, who stayed to watch was guilty, but if you walked onto the property while seeing what was happening around you then no excuses. I wouldn’t walk with a raging crowd into any building let alone the Capitol building. The Capitol! I would not walk down the street with a bunch of “protestors” who had weapons and were out of control.

Peer pressure and mob mentality is no excuse. Are you going to join in on the gang rape because your drunk friends are doing it?

I’m usually fairly moderate and try to see both sides, and we often are similar on that, but on this I think we disagree.

I’m ready to put the leaders and the most violent in the group into Guantanamo.

@JLeslie Yep, them and the violent protester’s who beat cops, killed kids in Chicago and elsewhere, should all be prosecuted to the full extend of the law. Equality.

There are youtube interviews with a few of the parents and ‘insurrectionists’, that specifically say they were ushered into open doors so I assume they did have inside help, if true. Many on the Right think the whole thing was a Democratic set-up meant to do exactly what it did, make some of the Rightwing extremists come out of hiding.

Let’s all be honest, anyone going up against the might of the US military, especially Congress, the Pentagon or WH, better think twice, other countries or our own people.

@janbb – It was not an armed insurrection. No guns were brandished nor were they doing anything to over throw the government. They wanted to influence the way their representatives would vote. Typical protest goal.

@JLeslie – I have no problem putting the violent protesters in any jail you choose but I would like to see the same treatment for any violent protesters regardless of which political party they benefit.

@Jaxk Jinx, pinch poke, you owe me a coke! :)

@Jaxk So You don’t think shouting “Kill Mike Pence” is insurrection or trying to overthrow the government?

Imma going to stop following now and I apologize for calling you a jerk.

@JLeslie I don’t think we disagree that much. What I’m saying is that you become empowered and energized by being in a mob. While I’m sure there were people who set out to “storm the Capitol” from the beginning, there were others who probably thought that was crazy and had no intention of doing so until they saw others doing it and actually succeeding. Not saying that absolves them of guilt; I’m just interested in why people do the things they do.

@janbb – No more than all the times that is said about any politician. The jerk comment was the only thing that I agree with you.

@Jaxk Yes, of course. All violent rioters. They do get arrested and convicted. Some of them might get let of with less punishment than you want, but that is happening all around.

@KNOWITALL It doesn’t matter if it was a Democratic set up. What is the set up? Let the rioters in the Capitol? That does not change what happened. Do you think Democrats were the ones on social media organizing it? Leading it? Let’s say a cop said to you go ahead and stab JLeslie, it will be ok. A cop tells you go ahead walk into @janbb‘s house and go through her things and break her windows. Would you think that cop was off his rocker or that his word was the gospel and suddenly morality, integrity, and laws had suddenly changed.

That is the Milgram experiment. People will harm others if authority tells them it is ok. No! I just don’t want to accept that. People need to be aware of this dynamic so they recognize it within themselves. We should be teaching it every year in school.

I think @Jaxk was one of the “Patriots” in DC on January 6th, for a tour.

And he is proud of it too!

@JLeslie It does indeed matter to many of us how people got into the chamber, that’s a major security breach that should never have been allowed to happen. Even Pelosi’s former aid said there could have been nefarious intent involving security measures.

Fact is, Democrats normalized the rioting, looting and protesting in 2020 and people like Maxine Waters instigated and encouraged it. Easy to forget your own role in sanctioning anarchy I guess. So go get the crazy Republicans, but don’t think Democrats hands are clean.

@KNOWITALL I do care if DC police were in on it, I didn’t mean I don’t care about that. I want to know exactly what was going on and why the events went as they did. Do you think the Democrats organized it? Or, they just purposely allowed the QAnon crazy people to hang themselves (figuratively) by allowing them on the Capitol grounds? Or, were some of the police in on it? A high school friend of mine is a MD police officer in the area, he was on facebook being supportive of the Jan 6 invasion of the Capitol initially (that day). I don’t know how he feels now, now that so much more information has been revealed.

Democrats did not normalize rioting. Most Democrats kept insisting it was peaceful protesting during BLM, and never said looting or setting fires were ok. I would say some of them were oblivious to some of the rioting because of media sources or willful ignorance, but also keep in mind some of the vandals were the right wing creating disturbances. Not all, I realize there were others taking advantage of the protests. Parts of the far left maybe didn’t care what happened and I always took issue with that.

The right wing media generalizes the Democrats based on the far left. They use something AOC says, and then if Biden completely disagrees with her, the Republicans never see Biden’s statement. Then I see Republicans saying Biden said what AOC said. The left wing media does the same, generalizes all Republicans based on a subset of Republicans.

Republican politicians play to the “base” and they shouldn’t. I figure the base is half the party, but there is another half. Democrats do some of it too, but not to the extreme I see in the Republicans party, maybe it is my filter and POV though.

The right wing media focused on where there was violence during BLM, but it was a small amount compared to the MILLIONS of people around the country and the world, most people were walking peacefully in the streets and sitting vigil in honor of Floyd.

Ugh, so I half agree with you actually, because it is all this inaccurate information and hysteria out there, but nothing justifies the violence.

I am all for arresting Democrats who are not peacefully protesting. You know I always have been.

Some left-wingers make the argument that BLM was protesting and rioting for racial justice while the January 6 crowd was protesting and rioting for fascism, therefore they’re not morally equivalent and you can’t make a direct comparison between them. At least, some people here essentially gave that answer to a question I asked about this very topic.

Wow, so the attack on Capitol Hill was the fault of Dems? Crazy talk. Violence in Black Lives Matter marches was anarchy? To white supremacists for sure.

Attacking Capitol Hill to stop a legit procedure was merely a protest. Bull. Shit. What kind of Americans buy this bullshit?

Do you people who equate violence in BLM marches with the attack on Capitol Hill even realize how ridiculous you come across?

@JLeslie I know you do, because you’re rational and know the context of 2020–21 just as I do.
All I’m saying is that when you read and listen to the firsthand accounts on both sides, they don’t match up. There can’t be no one outside the barricades and with no weapons, then all the sudden a swarm of armed people in Trump caps raising hell while the speech was 30 minutes down the street.

@Desmosthenes Killing in the name of…..Yes, I get it.

If you want to crunch numbers, 4 people were hurt/killed on Jan 6th.
18 people died in 24 hours during the Floyd protests in Chicago alone.

That’s why the GOP is blocking the special committee, I’m sure.

@mazingerz88 You are worried about whether it’s equivalent instead of saying (or you are not also saying) the rioting, vandalism, and looting no matter what isn’t ok. They are just going to hear you don’t condemn the riots in Portland and Chicago.

@KNOWITALL Blocking the special committee?

Attacking Capitol Hill to stop a legit procedure was merely a protest. Bull. Shit. What kind of Americans buy this bullshit?

I agree. Violence and rioting is violence and rioting. I’m not going to pretend that people were looting TVs for “racial justice”. But to just end the discussion at “they’re exactly the same, no further information needed” is to ignore the anti-democratic context of the January 6th “insurrection”. Those people were there to overturn a democratic election based on lies they had been fed. The real injustice is that the politicians and pundits who encouraged it and spread those lies will escape punishment.

In either case, both instances contained many people who were there to cause chaos and probably didn’t care what the issue was. That’s true of nearly every protest, especially those that become riots.

@Demosthenes I do think part of the crowds in these things are people who are attracted to chaos. Another jelly who isn’t on this thread talks about that. Young men wreaking havoc.

I also think a big part of that crowd were being told for many months to “rise up” and that they needed to defend the country, which they interpreted as attacking the Capitol.

@Tropical_Willie – Just to clear the record, you won’t find me at any protest regardless of party affiliation. I don’t do it or sympathize with it.

@Jaxk Same here. Nor a Trump/Biden rally.

@Desmosthenes Well if Trump runs again, he will lose.
You make a riot sound like a 90’s mosh pit haha.

Well that’s part of why I don’t go to protests because I like chaos too much ;)

Why didn’t they use their guns? Apparently they were responsible gun owners.

Does anyone know how many people showed up at the capitol on Jan 6th? The largest estimate I’ve found in various news articles & videos, was around 800 people but most seem to believe it was closer to 600.

@Jaxk Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick with a chemical spray. And several officers were badly injured and I believe one lost an eye and 2 police officers committed suicide. One on his first day back to work. His wife said he wasn’t the same after the riot.

@cheebdragon I read close to 10,000 on the grounds, and I think 800 breeched the Capitol building. Something like 500 people have been federally charged with a crime.

It’s definitely at least several thousand on the grounds, the crowd was huge that were swarming all over the Capitol grounds and climbing up the building.

@Pandora
“Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Francisco J. Diaz said Sicknick died of “acute brainstem and cerebellar infarcts due to acute basilar artery thrombosis,” or strokes caused by blockages in the arteries in his brain and brainstem.

Diaz ruled Sicknick’s death was due to natural causes, which he specified in an addendum to the release means that “disease alone causes death.”

“If death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural,” Diaz said.

The medical examiner’s office also included a timeline of Sicknick’s death in its release:

At 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 6, Sicknick was sprayed with a chemical substance outside the U.S. Capitol building.
At approximately 10:00 p.m., he collapsed at the Capitol and was transported to a nearby hospital.
At approximately 9:30 p.m. on January 7, he died at the hospital.”

@cheebdragon Here is a video showing the timeline. The first couple of minutes are “slow” but then you start to really see some video of the size of the crowd and the multiple locations they entered the building from and the crowds inside and out at many locations. The video is at the top of the article. Towards the end you see significant footage so I hope you watch it through. You’ll see thousands crawling all over the building. They were there fighting for hours. https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007606996/capitol-riot-trump-supporters.html

@cheebdragon And you think being sprayed with bear spray and hit on the head and shoved violently didn’t hasten his death? What’s to say he wouldn’t have had several more days or even years of life if he had a normal workday and maybe had a minor stroke where they would’ve been able to get him to a hospital on time and he would’ve been treated or had surgery and survive. They hastened his death so that’s still manslaughter.

@Pandora the determination of a natural cause of death means the medical examiner found that a medical condition alone caused his death — it was not brought on by an injury. The autopsy found no evidence that Officer Sicknick had an allergic reaction to chemicals or any internal or external injuries.
They could claim that stress caused his stroke but it’s not going to hold much weight since law enforcement is a high stress job.

@cheebdragon No one who has seen the footage can believe that officer died of natural causes. Any report that says differently is part of denial and cover up.

“They could claim that stress caused his stroke but it’s not going to hold much weight since law enforcement is a high stress job.”

Deranged statement. Cruel. Heartless. Does not really apply to Sicknick’s specific cause of stress which led to his death. Totally disgusting thing to say.

@cheebdragon presented facts based on the science. Denying it over conspiracy theories is no better than antivaxxers vs Covid.

@cheebdragon I hope you are watching the officers testifying today, July 27th, 2021. Their personal accounts. I hope all Americans are.

@KNOWITALL I am watching testimony by the Capitol Officers. These are witness statements. They are testifying about officers who lost fingers, who were battered, and stressed beyond their limits. One shows the body cam footage of him being carried away by other officers.
How dare you compare anti-vax idiots to the brave protevtors who were abused to the point of surcoming.

They said multiple estimates by multiple sources was over 9,000 rioters were there.

They said the rioters told the police not to draw their weapons because many rioters had fire arms and will fire back.

The officers were physically attacked, called names, electrocuted, maced, had their lives physically and verbally threatened. The rioters carried multiple different flags and one officer spoke about many of them carrying or wearing Christian symbols (I in no way feel Christianity is the problem, I only mean the evil leaders use Christianity to control and manipulate people, I am incredibly thankful to so many of my Christian friends who have tried for years now to make these people who are being brainwashed to see the truth). They not only verbally threatened the officers, but our congressmen as well.

You must watch the testimony.

I hope the people conducting this investigation don’t only pursue holding Trump culpable, but also whoever helped to organize this. During the testimony the officers spoke of the rioters yelling out that Trump wants them to do this, that they were supported by the president and following his orders. Even if Trump did nothing to organize it, he urged them on, he had urged them and condoned them for 5 years.

If you think Trump was a good president and did lots of good things regarding policy, it doesn’t change the bad he did. The mob boss activity of encouraging his supporters to be violent and act against our nation.

If Republicans want law and order, then ignoring what happened on Jan 6 is incongruous. I know many Republicans do not ignore it, and I am glad.

I know for some people who love Trump it is like admitting a family member is a criminal. Hard to know. Hard to want to accept. Not just Trump, but many of the voices they have been listening to the last 5 years and more are people and figures they want to trust.

@filmfann Are you not a Democrat? Because I could have sworn thats the same party who stood by last summer and watched cops get assaulted and told them to just try to hold the line?

I always dare, you must not know me at all.

@JLeslie I know for some people who love Trump it is like admitting a family member is a criminal. Hard to know. Hard to want to accept. Not just Trump, but many of the voices they have been listening to the last 5 years and more are people and figures they want to trust.

I think that’s true but I think it’s just a matter of people in general not wanting to admit their “brothers in ideology” did something wrong and it applies all around. It doesn’t matter if you don’t support or even sympathize with the January 6th rioters or the BLM/Antifa rioters; to condemn them is to score a point for the other side and that’s unthinkable.

@Demosthenes I’ve been saying the same about scoring a point for the other side, but I haven’t used that turn of phrase. The Democrats are guilty of it too, no question. Part of it is the intense fear of the other side.

But, I still say it is also that people can’t deal with knowing they supported or believed someone who is truly doing bad things that are not only hurting the opposition but hurting people on their own side. None of us want to know things like that. It’s more in our nature to be loyal and to want believe we make good decisions.

@JLeslie If it makes you feel any better, most of the Trump supporters here are NOT supporting a 2024 run. The events of Jan 6th and his part in that situation completely turned off many of his supporters in this red state.
If the conspiracy theories are to be believed, that was the goal. Either way, I’d bet money he has zero chance of winning again.

@KNOWITALL I am a moderate. I used to be a Republican, but the party moved too far to the right.
I never supported the violence and looting in any protest.

@KNOWITALL I wish I could trust that Trump would lose any future election, but the GOP are woring hard to remove and dissuade democratic voters.

@filmfann Good to know, I’m more of a Libertarian but have voted both major parties in the past. I don’t support the violence or looting by either party or their extremists either.

What I do have a problem with is calling out one group for poor behavior and not the other group, especially when the perps are protected by a major political party. That goes for last summer and Jan 6th both.

We’ll see, I could be wrong but I know he burned a lot of bridges. Plus I thought he’d be in jail, that’s all I’ve heard for over four years now…wonder where that’s at? haha!

@KNOWITALL I like hearing it, but know that I’ve said for months I don’t believe Trump could win again. Just last week someone said to me they heard if Trump ran he would be guaranteed the nomination, and I said I don’t believe it.

I think my Governor, DeSantis, has a good chance. When I said that, the other person I was talking to said she thought he was too inexperienced. That made no sense to me. He was a congressman and now a governor who has gone through COVID and handled natural disasters during his tenure. That certainly can be marketed as experience. I don’t know if she was a Republican or Democrat or Independent. I told her I heard Hogan might run, and she didn’t know who he was.

I wonder among the Republicans who are horrified by Jan 6 and by many things that Trump and people in the party have done, who are they interested in to run for President? I should probably write a Q. Would Liz Cheney have a shot? What about Adam Kinzinger?

I guess things will be more apparent after the midterm elections.

@filmfann So, you think Trump would definitely get the part nomination if he ran?

@JLeslie I’d agree DeSantis has decent chances, too. We shall see.

Potential Republican presidential candidates 2024
Republican politicians
Greg Abbott, governor of Texas[8]
Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey[9]
Bob Corker, former senator from Tennessee[10]
Tom Cotton, U.S. senator from Arkansas[11]
Daniel Crenshaw, U.S. representative from Texas[12]
Ted Cruz, U.S. senator from Texas[13]
Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida[4]
Doug Ducey, governor of Arizona[10]
Mike DeWine, governor of Ohio[6]
Joni Ernst, U.S. senator from Iowa[12]
Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations[4]
Josh Hawley, U.S. senator from Missouri[4]
Larry Hogan, governor of Maryland[6]
Mike Lee, U.S. senator from Utah[8]
Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota[14]
Mike Pence, former vice president of the United States[4]
Mike Pompeo, secretary of state[13]
Marco Rubio, U.S. senator from Florida[15]
Ben Sasse, U.S. senator from Nebraska[8]
Rick Scott, U.S. senator from Florida[16]
Tim Scott, U.S. senator from South Carolina[8]
Elise Stefanik, U.S. representative from New York[12]
Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States[17]
Republican business executives and public figures
Tucker Carlson, Fox News anchor[18]
Candace Owens, conservative activist[12]
Donald Trump Jr., businessman and political adviser[4]
Ivanka Trump, businesswoman and political adviser[11]

Wow. That’s some list!

@JLeslie Most people here hate Hawley, so disregard that. :)

I don’t know much about most of the people on the list, but Chris Christie, I would think, screwed up his chances. I only know a bit more about him than the others because he’s from my neighboring state.

Trump will pull about 40% of the Republican voters, which is enough to get the nomination