Are you for real?
Because it didn’t produce widespread national change or something?
Why would the organizers consider it a failure if the primary objective was achieved? Did it not expose corrupt practices and ultimately stop them? The armed vets prevented the corrupt politicians from fixing this particular election with the veteran backed candidate winning. It was a local conflict that lead to local changes.
You'll need an NY Times account. But to quote the organizers (almost all of them resigned after they gained power): "We abolished one machine only to replace it with another and more powerful one in the making." They also advised other veterans committees that armed force (aka 2A) was not the best way to go about things.
The Battle of Athens is often cited as an example of civic duty holding the government accountable and protecting democracy from corruption.
Except it didn't work. Read the primary sources, or actual historical work on the matter, not political fan fiction that removes the events of their context. I'll also point out that scaling up the events of a town of 15,000 to entire countries is ludicrous. It is also bizarre that you focus on one rather unique instance of taking arms against a corrupt poltiical machine, as opposed to the hundreds or thousands of times this was done without arms to much greater success.
Armed resistance groups across EUROPE. Take your pick. You can pick groups from France, Yugoslavia, Norway and sure, even Poland as examples of local groups using civilian arms to undermine Nazi control in an attempt to maintain and/or restore democracy.
And notice how all of them failed. Of the three examples below, 2 of them prove the opposite of what you claim.
-France was liberated by the allies (this was inevitable, with or without partisan help). It was mostly democratic before the war and continue to be for the most part post-War
-Yugoslavia became a dictatorship, with the most powerful partisan (Tito) seizing power and holding onto it for decades.
-Poland was a tenuous democracy pre-war and became a full fledged autocracy post-war. The actual democratic transition came during the Solidarity movement in the 80s, which was primarily non-violent.
You seem to be confused about what you actually asked. You asked for instances of when civilian arms were key to democratization OR protecting democracy.
I gave you examples of civilians attempting to or actually protecting democracy.
See above. Your examples mostly prove the opposite of what you are arguing.
I'm sure the Deacons for Defense and Justice did more harm than good for the Civil Rights movement.
Remind me again, what did they have to do with the Brown v Board of Education or any of the Civil Rights Acts? You keep missing the big picture.
That's all well and good, but there are plenty of historical examples of armed civilians initiating change leading to democratic changes in their local government or pushing for democracy/sovereignty.
How do you see the Irish War of Independence going without armed Irish civilians? Or the Bolivian Revolution in the 1950s?
Give me some examples where countries democratized primarily through armed civilians.
The troubles ended through the Good Friday agreement, after the IRA gained legitimacy at the ballot box and its more violent brethren delegitimized themselves to the point of not being influential anymore. Most of the biggest Irish nationalist victories were PR, not actual conflict. AKA, breaking out from the Maze, Bloody Friday, etc.
