[In China, the right to private gun ownership is not guaranteed by law.
I’m sure Mr. Zhanxuan has nothing to fear.]
The issue was never gun possession. It was continued gun possession after the Communists took over, with capital punishment for having a gun, and bounties for turning in gun owners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_offences_in_China The Communists started their reign like every other dynasty in Chinese history (and like many other new regimes in other countries in medieval times), by purging (killing or imprisoning) potential political opponents. Many gun-owning land owners were killed outright along with their entire families. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_of_landlords_under_Mao_Zedong
Could they have resisted successfully? I think it’s unlikely, the government generally has the upper hand, as long as it’s somewhat united and ruthless in its approach to quashing resistance. Most rulers have eliminated guerrilla resistance using fairly low-tech, low-resource methods, by imposing collective punishment typically involving the physical elimination of anyone merely suspected of supporting guerrillas. From the standpoint of the ruler, it is better to kill 100 innocents than to let 1 rebel go free. Because that rebel could turn out to be Lenin (who did end up killing the entire Romanov clan - the last of the Russian royal family).
[Guerilla warfare can be easily defeated if the attackers are resolute.
Genghis Khan, probably the greatest conquerer ever, never had a problem with guerilla warfare, even though the lands he conquered included Afghanistan. Why? Because his army simply slaughter all civilians, including their babies, who dare to fight against them.
In the Vietnam war, the Americans struggled against the Vietcongs. When China fought Vietnam, China simply romped through North Vietnam (north of Hanoi), transport removable factories/infrastructure back to China while destroying those that they cannot bring back. One crack Vietnamese division that was rushed back from Cambodia wisely decided to settle into prepared defensive positions near Hanoi instead of reinforcing the surrounded troops north of Hanoi. Why didn’t China has problem with Vietcong guerilla fighters?
When I first visited China in the 1990s, a retired veteran bitterly told me that his Major was killed by a ~6 year old Vietnamese kid holding a secret pistol when he was giving out food to the kid. Apparently, this is not an isolated incident. Very soon, they enacted Genghis Khan’s strategy. North Vietnamese villagers encountered were simply labeled as “civilian militia”, treated as combatants and showed no mercy. PLA never encounter anymore guerilla problems because there were no civilians left to provide the guerilla with information, shelter and food!
In the 1980s, there is no internet and no international reporter who has access to report on this. Chinese body counts, which included “civilian militia combatants”, concluded that enemy casualties were in excess of 10 times PLA losses.]
If you haven't read it, I'd recommend the somewhat outdated but highly relevant The Samurai, the Mountie and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies. Professor Kopel does an outstanding job of defending his thesis that effective gun control and/or gun rights are tethered to a nation's culture. Thus, an individualist country like the US (the cowboy) would chafe at gun control while in Japan (where the Samurai protects others) gun control works because it is...
a racially homogenous society (97% ethnic Japanese) with a state religion (Shinto). Police are not handcuffed by civil rights concerns. The criminal confession rate of 95% is attributed to routine police torture of suspects (pages 25 and 26) and even illegally-obtained evidence is admissible in court. Japan is a police state and is an island.
Kopel didn't cover China but I'd be interested in knowing the extent to which China's pre-Mao culture was more akin to individualism or collectivism.
Thank you again.