Which Spain has. It may be difficult, but the tools are there.
Undeniable, but whether the tools are used is another question
Fine, I'll play along.
Don't think I'm rusing you, I can sympathize with the fear of having your country carved apart, and hope Spain retains her unity - but I fear her current course of action does not follow the road she believes she is on
So let's say you have a band of followers, a hundred or so, on a ranch. They've declared that they are not willing to follow the laws of the state. They refuse to pay taxes.
The state sends the tax man to collect taxes, but the band refuses to give the tax man entrance.
The tax man calls for the police to arrest them on account of tax evasion.
The band now decides to shoot the police for trying to enforce the "oppressive" law of the state. Police officers die.
Reinforcement is called in, and now there's a standoff.
Should the law be abandoned, or not? The band of followers are people, no? So they have a right to choose?
What is clear is that in your example is that by refusing to negotiate with your citizens you have placed them on a warpath with your armed forces and many will die as a result. To talk is not abandoning rule of law, to enforce rule of law under such severe conditions does not cow people into paying taxes and obeying central government, it incentivizes outright rebellion. Reminds me of a general in Imperial China's legalist phase, wherein he was late for a deployment and asked his adjutant what the penalty for being late was. The answer was death. He asked his adjutant what the penalty for rebellion was. The answer was death.
Consider a real world comparison, one almost identical to your scenario in the Clive Bundy ranch standoff. Tax man shows up, gets shooed away. Tax man calls in reinforcement, citizen calls in his own reinforcement, standoff results in lots of guns pointing at one another - so they talk, negotiate and defuse the situation. Eventually the police go home, the militia go home, everyone calms down, and 3 years later the man who didn't pay his taxes is arrested at an airport.
If they had resorted to violence in order to enforce the law, what they would have done is ensure law broke down. Armed conflict between citizenry and state renders the rule of law impossible, not permissible.
At a larger scale, this would be civil war. It's a breakdown of law and civil society.
Realistically and historically, whoever wins decides the outcome.
By violently enforcing the law instead of talking to your citizenry, you do not avoid civil war, you ensure it. On a larger scale it will be worse for Spain than the breakdown of law and civil society, the Catalonians will be forced to either submit to the Madrid government or create their own parallel authority, law court, law enforcement, military force and civil service. All of this makes their independence much surer, especially as violent repression will turn people away - Catalonian Terry sitting on the fence of whether to pursue independence or remain in Spain looking at Spanish soldiers beating up Catalonian friends is going to think independence is a lot better than this.
Don't compare peaceful protestors to trigger happy redneck ranchers.
pls no bully amerifreedoms