Most basic-training soldiers would obey orders to suppress a parliamentary coup.

Evidence

In 1977 I asked a sample of Canadian soldiers who had just finished their basic training what they would do if the prime minister suspended the civil liberties of Canadians and declared Parliament closed, when “there are no laws giving the prime minister such powers.” Seventy-six percent said that they would obey orders to take up positions on Parliament Hill to keep the House of Commons from meeting. Ninety-two percent said they would arrest a member of the House of Commons who tried to enter the Parliament buildings. Sixty-three percent said they would, if ordered, shoot at demonstrators who gathered to protest the destruction of democracy (RWA, pp. 274-275). — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 4461

Categorization

• XREF: Direct empirical evidence for ordinary people’s willingness to comply with authoritarian overreach, echoing Milgram obedience findings and the vault’s claims about authoritarianism and submission to authority.
• CANDY: Shocking single statistic (63% would shoot at protesters of a democracy’s destruction) that lands in any conversation about obedience and authority.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 4461