We are talking about conflicts between police forces in a stateless society. A sniper on either side won't help.
Did you really write this? Are you being serious?
Off topic, but can I recommend you read "A Frozen Hell" by Trotter. It will give you a better idea of how the Finns beat the Russians. The key factor was logistics for the Finnish army. Once the Russians fixed their logistics in WW2, the Finns lost all they had gained and more.
I'm open to being corrected but as far as I know, there hasn't been a war between Western forces in which infantry did even 50% of the killing in over a century. I read that in WW1 it was about 10% infantry and the rest artillery. So if there are 2 courts and one has a police force with trained soldiers with aircraft and tanks, and the other has civilians equipped with firearms, the civilians will lose the case.
Be wary of what you read. I won't argue that artillery can kill more people, particularly in a war of attritian. They are a force advantage, but you still require a target. It's hard to target the enemy discriminately, when they are a minority mixed into the general population. As for your courts in mortal conflict example, it depends. If those civilians outnumber the trained professional force by any significant margin, and half or more of those civilians are either former military themselves, or graduates of 'Appleseed' your mercs are going to have much to consider concerning their loyalties after contact with the enemy. Don't expect that books, even history textbooks that focus on military history, are going to make up for your lack of direct experience in this field. I served 8 years in the USMC. There is
nothing more frightening than a civilian with a rifle who doesn't have anything left to lose.
What puzzles me is why you'd even think that is a good way to settle a dispute.
What puzzles me is why you keep assuming that when I state the obvious, that you jump to the conclusion that I find that reality preferable. This side-track was all started when you tried to claim that a group of men with guns was just a lawless rabble, and I pointed out that
is exactly what government boils down to. Regardless of how fair, or "democratic" or otherwise justifiable you (or I) might consider any particular goverment structure to be; governments always boils down to the set of rought men willing to do violence against others on the command of a perceived superior.
Government IS force. There is no way around this. Likewise, there is no way around the fact that IP laws are specific applications of said force (and threat of force) against one group of citizens to the benefit of another group of citizens.