One of the factors that brought Turks out in the streets against the coup attempt was something no one seems to have considered.
Turks have told me, “the military came out with their weapons against the government, against the people; but we bought those weapons with our taxes. Those are OUR weapons, not the army’s. They have weapons because we gave them weapons, and we gave them weapons to defend our government and our people. They have no right to do whatever they want with our weapons.”
Turks have a deep sense of ownership of their institutions, and they have that feeling because Turkey is a democracy.