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7. The People
 
  Article 48- Riots and Gang Warfare  
48.1 Riots and Gang Warfare  
  Where a society offers a level of free speech and media, the use of riots and gang warfare is an ideal method of insurgency, guerilla warfare and rebellion.
 
  A population is generally more disturbed from the image of a violent riot than random acts of terrorism, particularly when it directly affects community assets such as shops, parks, jobs and factories.  
  Furthermore, a hard military crackdown on a riot, particularly if deaths occur can quickly become the rallying cry for much larger, more peaceful demonstration in open defiance of a state and the military.  
  Governments have fallen simply because they chose to punish rioters and demonstrators too harshly.  
48.2 Response to riots  
  The nature of all riots are such that their birth, progress and resolution are entirely predictable, even if the main antagonists are not known until it occurs.  
  1. Virtually all riots begin as a rapid radicalization of a demonstration meeting some deliberate barricade or central location of historic or strategic importance;  
  2. Rioters ideally prefer it when the timing of a demonstration occurs in the afternoon or evening of a day, limiting the daylight hours of police or military response;  
  3. Rioters require a strong media presence to enable their message to be transmitted quickly to the rest of the population. A riot without media attendance is a wasted event.  
  Similarly, the police or military response to rioters also tends to be entirely predictable, virtually modeled on old traditions of cavalry charges, lines of defence and a general code of allowing the enemy to form into position.  
  Whether the allowance of the enemy (rioters) to form is out of general ignorance, or a real desire of local police/military to engage in battle, once battle lines are formed, then the rioters have won, regardless of how many are arrested, beaten or shot. This is because the images transmitted around the world will always show the police/military vastly outnumbering the poor underdog rioters.  
  The most successful and only adequate response to a riot is to never allow the formation of organized lines and never in the presence of the media.  
     
 
 
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