Yes, exactly. But, I’ll admit it took me until the republican primary before the 2016 election for this to register in my mind. I was born in the US in the 80s & fell into the “what you see is all there is” bias (and hadn’t read enough history before then either).

Another opinion that I’m sure will get me downvoted is that this is the primary reason I support gun ownership by private citizens. I think having a chance at stopping mass government slaughter like in Iran and Syria is overall better than the downside.

Bottom line is that human nature has not changed. Some of us westerners take comfortable lives for granted because we’ve been lucky.