A mayor of a town who’s been on the receiving end of peaceful protests doesn’t order the police to fire on the crowd to restore order. Once control slips, violence replaces authority.
Reports emerging from Iran suggest a regime reaching for the same desperate tool.
Claims From Inside the Chaos
Reports from Fox News sharing an account from inside Iran describe security forces recently opening fire using live ammunition on protesters. A physician working near the protests described a “Shoot to Kill” posture, saying that gunfire targeted crowds rather than dispersing them.
Speaking after fleeing the country, the doctor told CHRI that the use of live fire increased the death toll days after protests erupted on Dec. 28.
“Law enforcement forces were firing pellet shotguns that scatter pellets. During those days, I received five or six calls per day about people who had been hit by two pellets in the back, or pellets to the head or scalp,” the doctor claimed.
The doctor said he noticed the situation shifted on Jan. 8, when authorities imposed internet blackouts and cut off communication nationwide.
Independent verification remains difficult, but reports describe wounded people arriving at medical facilities with gunshot wounds consistent with live rounds. This pattern mirrors prior crackdowns that followed mass protests across Iran.
Related: Will There Still Be an Iran the Day After Tomorrow?
Where Power Resides
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei keeps his boot on the people he’s supposed to lead, while holding final authority over the Islamic Republic’s political and security systems.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian leads the civilian government, but operational forces remain under the purview of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Guard directly reports to the supreme leader, so when live fire enters the streets, decisions don’t originate solely from those on the streets. Orders travel downward through a disciplined chain of command.
A Pattern Written in Blood
There’s a grim rhythm to Iran’s recent protest history; demonstrations rise after economic collapse, political repression, or moral policing abuses, including the death of Mahsa Amini.
Each wave begins with chants and signs, and ends with force.
The use of live ammunition—if confirmed—pushes the escalation beyond control. While tear gas warns, batons intimidate and bullets silence.
When Violence Replaces Legitimacy
If these claims hold, shooting live ammunition into crowds crosses yet another moral line. Governments exist to protect people, not hunt them. Any state that treats dissent as an enemy abandons any claim of legitimacy.
These acts don’t reflect strength; they show fear. Authority rooted in consent doesn’t need gunfire to survive.
International reaction is usually slow because strategic interests complicate moral clarity; energy markets, regional stability, and nuclear negotiations mute outrage.
There’s no comfort to regimes that rely on delay; time never erases the memory of bullets fired at people. Gunfire clears the streets, not grievances. Homes shutter, voices are quiet, and fear settles in.
The new policy becomes fear, while control persists until fear collapses.
It always does.
Final Thoughts
A mayor ordering live gunfire into a crowd might quiet the square for a little while, but he never restores legitimacy. Silence bought with bullets doesn’t last. It calcifies resentment and records guilt.
If the reports from Iran are true and describe a regime choosing deadly force over restraint and death over dissent, the act doesn’t signal authority under threat; it confirms authority already lost.
Governments answering protests with live ammunition stop governing and starts hunting. History keeps careful track of the regimes that have reached that point, and it never confuses that government’s fear with strength.
Moments like the one unfolding in Iran demand moral clarity, not euphemism.
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