As we learned from the American Civil War, the southern states were incapable of seceding. However this isn't the question at hand. The above user asked this:
The outcome of a war 160 years ago has utterly no relation to how a decision to secede would play out today. I use the word "process" in place of "whatever sequence of actions" might occur if states were to assert their intent to separate from the country. "Secession" might not even be an appropriate term - a resolution could be introduced, through all the correct and proper channels, for the United States to dissolve in an organized fashion, as the Soviet Union did in 1991. There's really no point saying any political proposal "can't" happen.
My point is the North employed violence in the form of a successful military campaign to maintain the Union. Where the North failed was following up with a re-education campaign to squash southern propaganda, such as the myth of the Lost Cause.
Tell me you don't live here (or know someone who does) without directly saying it
I've seen mounted MGs in the mountains, my guy, you don't know what's actually here and in the hands of some CRAZY leftists. I know 2 different people who have offered me very illegal arms should shit ever hit the fan, one of them owns a functional truck they just need to slide a tripod into the back into some homemade brackets and they can have a mounted MG truck in like 10m
Fuck, I've seen an actual RPG get shot (that was wild)
You're right, I've never been to California to experience things first hand. I was hanging in the Nevada desert with a group of 2A's that make their own ammo, shooting things that were most likely war crimes, and they had nothing nice to say about California and their laws.
Probably not the best source, but it's the one I have.
Our laws aren't amazing, I'll grant them that an annoying amount of them are for show only, but those kinds of guys don't actually know what the law is here, they just assume shit because we're a liberal state that is known to have gun laws
I've unironically seen people that are into guns at that same level claim you cant buy an AR-15 here and meant it, which is patently ridiculous
Without industrializing the North could have lost the war to the South as they would have been more evenly matched. The North needed to win the political battle, the war, and then after the war, the culture war. They won the first two, but we are still fighting the culture war.
It's not like the DON'T WALK sign at the crosswalk. If a state presented Congress with a demand to secede they would have to address it. Simply telling the state it was illegal wouldn't be enough. The state could take whatever next step they want, the federal government would have to respond, and whatever was going to happen would happen. There's no point speculating about the results, but if a state got to the point of actually starting this sequence rolling, it wouldn't just stop with "sorry no you can't it's illegal."
A jaywalker doesn't petition the town council to cross the street illegally. They jaywalk. A state seceding could involve as little as a governor declaring their state left the Union. At that point the ball would be in the Federal Government's court to set the record straight, to clarify that the state in fact did not secede.
The conversation wouldn't end there. The state would retort to the effect that, "Oh yes we did," and the central theme of the discussion would quickly shift away from proper use of the term "secede" and whether a jaywalker analogy works to what everybody is actually going to do about it.