Democrats and a few misguided Republicans who've claimed the January 6 incursion at the Capitol was an insurrection are engaging in serious hyperbole. Actually, a modest number of people unhappy with election security were obnoxious and rude to the political establishment, nothing more.
In our notoriously gun-happy culture, any serious insurrection would include lots of firearms and shooting. Whereas the only shooting that occurred was an over-zealous Capitol police officer who fatally shot the unarmed Ashli Babbitt.
It's likely the rioters hoped to instigate what we've learned to call a "color revolution" as these have tended to be largely nonviolent. Quite obviously, nothing of the sort ensued. Like most who hope for a popular uprising, they greatly overestimated the popularity of their cause and the willingness of those who agreed with them to go to the streets in any sustained way. As many such attempts do, it fizzled.
What they did was unlawful, they understood this and went ahead anyway. Enforcing the existing laws and assessing the existing penalties should be a sufficient punishment.
