This is explored at length in the books. The wizard supremacists are an allegory for race supremacists, and it’s pointed out repeatedly that they’re delusional, broadly impotent, and small-minded. The death eaters believe so completely in their godhead and his divine right to rule that they neglect to consider even the most basic countermeasures or alternatives. There’s some “death of Stalin” paranoia but it’s overwhelmingly unforced incompetence.
Voldemort, likewise, blocks out even the potential for his lessers to outdo him. He is utterly infallible and his insecurities as an incest orphan to a fallen house will not allow him to feel any differently. Meanwhile, he’s been repeatedly circumvented and beaten by a group of teenagers, and his brewing plans will lead to the complete genocide of wizardkind upon reaching the world stage. It perfectly encapsulates the way race supremacists view the world and why they fail so frequently. The enemy is both strong and weak.
Darn shame rowling’s turned into what she hates. She wasn’t terrible at writing populism 101.
Harry Potter and the poorly-constructed magic ruleset.
The reason Hermione is sworn to secrecy about the wizarding world is that they know if muggles found out there was a deep state, the revolution would be swift.
That's one of many many plot holes in Harry Potter.
There's really no depth to the world building beyond, "What if British public schools taught magic?"
It doesn't make sense in any context beyond that because the author never considered it from any context beyond that. Whenever you run into some crazy crap in HP and wonder, "Why TF would anyone do it that way?" The answer is almost always, "Because that's how they do it in British public schools.
Honestly, I only really see wizards losing immediately in England, lol. It's canon that many wizards can use spells silently and/or without a wand, and some even create their own spells; they could likely incapacitate a soldier (or many soldiers, depending on the spell) without raising suspicion by having to aim a wand or gun.
I dunno, Magneto gives the US Army a run for their money in X-Men - I would think a similarly talented or experienced wizard would have comparable powers.
It comes down to how powerful static wards are, and how much technology just gets corrupted by magic. The real power of the wizards is memory and time manipulation. Close range is definitely in favor of wizards, you can't surprise them unless they are intentionally careless. They can always go back a few hours and ambush you back. Chaos would ensue if they deleted every memory before 5 of a handful of leaders.
The tech killing thing is poorly defined, but hogwarts seems to disable electronic devices within a radius. If it's similar to an emp, it may have countermeasures, but it's hard to say they also work on magic. Operating within the radius of somewhere like that would be difficult.
There's also the animagus issue. Every dog, cat, bird, or bug is a potential spy or assassin that is practically undetectable.
The big question is can spells stop a large bomb/nuke. Even if they couldn't, it would be possible for wizards to escape the blast zone pretty easily, unless they couldn't detect the attack.
I think the big weakness would be sniper fire that may be fast enough to prevent reactions at the borders of wards.
As nonsensical as it is, giving the limit of the suspension of believe necessary to keep the world reasonably coherent, the wizard world has a solid grasp on the non-magical world while it's a given (literally a given, it makes no sense otherwise) that the people from the normal world have no idea magic exists, other than what is leaked and relegated to fairy tales (it's our world).
Wizards, their institution and governments, their own citizen are aware of what weapons are. Harry himself of course knows what a gun is and could potentially grab a number of them to prepare for war.
So it's an implied obvious implicit answer that even a limited mastery of magic vastly overpowers weapons. Which is obvious if you consider that in the magical world they are aware of the "laws" of physics AND the extra laws of magic.
They just know more about how the world works, how to inflict death and how to protect against harm.
Obligatory Harry Potter With Guns trailer
I think the guns would help against wizards as much as they help against oppression. They are a helpful tool, for sure, but the ability to communicate and form plans is massively superior. And wizards, like modern tech giants, can impede that.
I personally think it depends on exactly what the limits of Magic are - it could be anything from Muggles eradicating Wizards, to the opposite, all very plausibly. To me, it comes down to the power of modern surveillance vs. the power of notice-me-not + space-expansion + anti-detection spells. Plus there’s a whole bunch of other powerful spells and devices (time turners, for example), but the muggles have a while fuckton of gold and other valuables to recruit these capabilities to their side as well.
Are you ready to meet frog?
Alakablam!
Wizards are perfect assassins. If they went for the leaders, muggles would drown in chaos.
I've been reading the mangas Japan Summons and Gate. I'd love to see a comic of a Western military curbstomping some magic beings
Well, I cannot imagine wizard dieing to a nuke. You would have to surprise them I suppose. I mean, what if they teleport the nuke to some other place?
Even if all the tech kept working, I imagine the only way you could beat a wizard as a Muggle is if they don't see it coming.
If they see a gun, sure, the first wizard may be surprised and die, but it will not take long to find a spell that shields them. Rockets? Same story. Sure you can destroy stuff, even kill a bunch. The rest will be back though, and they can teleport, change memories, actually turn into another person or animal, turn you into an animal and whatever else.
The one plot hole in HP that always annoyed me is how Avada Kedavra is supposed to be the worst spell. In the books it is mentioned how Peter Pippeling blew up a whole street with a bunch of muggles in it. That seems way more dangerous...
