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by stonogo 3632 days ago
The Knox laws are still in force. There is no legal framework for an American military coup, setting aside that the Commander in Chief is an elected office.
2 comments

Not to be pedantic, but the entire mechanism of coups d'état is that you step outside the legal framework and instead use intimidation and force.

If you fail, it's very, very often fatal. If you succeed, you retrofit some sketchy legal justification, or ignore the matter altogether.

Part of running a coup in a democratic country is that your ground troops have to be on your side. This is much more difficult when every single soldier is made completely aware during indoctrination that domestic military action is almost completely illegal. Adding in the fact that there is no conscription in America, the likelihood of a military coup today is vanishingly small.
What are the Knox laws? Google isn't pulling anything except this http://www.knox.army.mil/garrison/dhr/asd/docs/regs/r190-5.p...
An autocorrect failure; sorry. Should have been 'the Knott laws' aka the 'Posse Comitatus Act' of 1878.