Whether it be Hong Kong or Iran, or well, in dictatorships. A lot of times I see a ton of people coming to the street and basically shouting stuff.

This by itself doesn’t really do much, it doesn’t do any work, and is solely reliant on if the entity you are protesting to listens or not.

As is often the case, they just get met with armed personnel, and beaten up, and that’s that.

Which in cases like Iran went up to like 30k or more deaths.

But like, what is the exact mindset of this? If there are that many people willing to do stuff, in many cases, the majority of the population being in favor. Why don’t they go rob/take over some police stations and places with weapons. Then basically force their demands one way or another? Like establishing your own gov, and beating anyone who disobeys you including the current gov?

Now I am aware, revolutions of this type also happen. But I am not exactly sure why this is just often not the case, and people just go and… shout pointlessly in streets? What is the deciding factor?