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Don't be a fool. Everyone in America has guns or access to them. It's trivial to buy one and many on the left own them all the same as anyone else.
Like 40% of American households own guns. Most gun owners just own multiple. Leftist should either arm themselves in preparation or be prepared to be trampled on.
Thats a nice lie that left/center leaning people keep telling themselves.
The reality is that republicans by far have a higher percentage of gun owners.
If there were a fight that started today, there would be a sweep.
Then you have to remember that every force of violence in the US, LEOs, all branches of military, all support trump.
No, the difference is, you believe all the bullshit. And I'm wise enough not to.
I'm not sure you can even vocalize what you're trying to say here.
The facts are just not in your favour.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/
Key excerpt:
You'll find that all available information says similar.
Republicans have a much higher percentage of gun ownership than democrats.
It's not just that they own more guns per individual. They have more individuals with guns.
I'm pretty sure what they are saying is that they don't believe a civil war (or similar) is starting.
There are millions of people in the US - if there was really an appetite for mass violence in the populace, it would've already revealed itself.
Accept that we are relatively peaceful in modern times and rethink your beliefs. Not many are willing to shoot their neighbor and contribute to the destruction of society because of the theater playing out in our government, politics, and media.
Here's a hypothetical for you to digest:
Would even the people deepest in the MAGA movement want their children to exist in a world where they aren't safe due to political violence and civil war? Could they reasonably protect them in such a reality?
This is insane logic to me when the president is clearly gearing up to do violence against the people, and the violent rhetoric is at an all time high.
"it hasn't happened yet, so it wont happen despite all the signs saying it will" is such a bad take its unimaginably bad.
There are literally multiple genocides happening right now. There are literally people being disappeared off the streets with no trials, identification and we don't know where they are ending up.
This is just an insane take.
They fucking stormed the capital!
Yes??? Are you not hearing these people. Holy fuck.
This is a new level of sticking ones head in the sand.
No, but they value hate above incredible personal sacrifice, hence their voting choices.
And yet he hasn't been able to - because despite all the propaganda, he can't justify it to his base. They have to resort to playing old protest footage and making up easily disprovable lies to rile people up - does that not read as desperate to you?
People are not taking the bait on either side. Stop acting like he (and the people influencing him) already won. They haven't, and they won't.
Despite the world population exploding, there has historically been much worse happening - and at much greater scales.
Which unfortunately isn't an entirely new occurrence if you look it up. These people have been living here and working here in massive amounts, and they have always lived under the threat of deportation, discrimination, and living as modern slaves - with very little recourse.
Under this administration, it's certainly much more well-funded, it's much more chaotic, it's much more performative in the way it's being done, and people being denied due process and getting shipped away to death camps and countries they've never been to is obviously extremely concerning and is not a positive trajectory (and is not performative, it's very real).
It's not an indicator that there is a civil war on the horizon though.
Everybody was free to do something tangible about that, including the people who held power after that event.
No, you are hearing the most vocal and insane examples through social media and other forms of media. Most people are not violent, believing others need to be shot because their politics differ. People are densely packed in with each other and nobody has fortresses besides the very rich. A civil war is not sustainable anywhere here in the US.
They are being manipulated into believing this is a matter of survival. They are led to believe that they are 1) voting in their best interest 2) that if they vote differently, people will take what they earned and worked hard for 3) that the other side is demonic, woke, and ineffectual. Hate doesn't factor into the equation for most of these people.
The world is a different place outside of social media and partisan media. Ground yourself, considering connecting with your community by attending an event or group or potentially volunteering your time, and understand that things are not always exactly how they are presented by those that literally thrive on our attention.
77 million people voted for Trump. There are over 340 million people in the US. Let that sink in and please consider reevaluating your beliefs.
Proclaiming Matthew 25 would diffuse a large part of what is going on - that's how much of a house of cards this all is.
Its only been ramping up, not down.
No. That reads as a disinformation campaign, and one that is working as they have ICE members ready and willing, currently committing heinous acts against the people.,
This arugment couldn't be more brain dead
"There are worse things than modern genocides, so its not that bad".
I'm finding it hard to think you arent a troll with logic like that.
Is every single bit of logic you have false equivalences in bad faith? That seems like it might be it.
This is tremendously brain dead logic once again, and it starts with you inserting a civil war angle to try to bait this discussion into going a specific way so we can't discuss the details of whats happening through their logical stages.
When this ramps up further, and people need to defend themselves, it doesn't matter what you call it.
This does not change anything. This is just you pointing out a separate failure.
More than that, they didn't do nothing, as otherwise there wouldnt be any people to pardon.
Polls repeatedly show that his supporters support him basically no matter what. You're just trying to downplay this, when in reality double digit percentages more republicans own guns than democrats, and their rhetoric for years has been to find a purpose for them.
Its almost like there is a reason that cities are blue, and anywhere that isn't a city is red.
Surely though this means everyone loves thy neighbor according to you.
How are you in one breath saying its no big deal and they don't think like this, then in the other breath, in the same god damn comment, saying that they think its a matter of survival?
This is crazy double speak. You are literally stating here that they think the other side is demonic, that they hate them for being woke (acknowledging the hardships of marginalized people), and ineffectual (similarly to how in Nazi germany jews were portrayed as weak, yet powerful and coniving), and somehow you pretend its not about hate.
Craaaaaazy set of clearly contradicting sentences.
The difference you are portraying is one where you stick your head in the sand and ignore what is actually happening in order to believe that everything is fine and nothing ever happens.
Your attempts at condescension while being completely ignorant are astounding.
Less people voted for the only alternative, and of those polled, for the eligible non-voters (Which you know is the number that matters and is exactly why you used total population to be misleading), surveys have said that trump would have still won if they voted.
Quoting the religious text of the regime to me after all you've just said is the icing on this shit cake.
You can see me as braindead, as a troll, as engaging in "double speak", as being condescending, as being ignorant, and so forth. None of those things are true, and this conversation has quickly devolved into shit-slinging instead of a healthy discussion. It seems like you are in an incredibly bad headspace - maybe I'm off-base, but I'm not looking down on you by pointing this out and asking you to consider untangling yourself from narratives strung by our media.
That's literally the context of the chain, somebody disagreed with your perspective in specific way and I spoke to my perspective in response to you - focusing on the likelihood of a civil war or mass violence perpetrated by MAGA.
We are both just as aware of what's going on as the other one, but I'm attempting to have a cooler head about it. I live in an area that is overwhelmingly occupied by MAGA voters and I'm not seeing the overflowing hate and violence here as an openly gay person.
Trump wouldn't have been able to run for the highest office in the country and assume office if they did do something concrete.
A large portion of these 77 million people are Christians, likely. Matthew 25 is literally teaching others to do the exact opposite of what the regime is currently doing. I'm attempting to point out here that there are over 250 million people who are not radicalized.
Being propagandized and manipulated is not exactly the same thing as being hateful. Christians are indeed manipulated into hate, but would quickly be shown the light if people assuaged their fears. As for people on the far-right media pipeline who are not religious, they may not be so easily shown the light.
Most Democrats are not as squeaky clean as we are led to believe and these people are likely picking up on something for them to strongly reject the other side. Like our last president being a Zionist who committed a genocide, even Kamala wrestled with that reality as detailed in her book.
Everybody would benefit from calming down. You are free to disagree - and I'm not suggesting that we calm down to the point of passivity and subservience to the chain of events unfolding, but rather calm down in regards to seeing violence with our neighbors as inevitable or likely.
Sure can, and thus far you arent beating the charges. Also kinda funny you decided to purposefully twist words there to portray my criticisms of your argument as insults against you. Typical bad faith behaviour. Troll is accurate though, because I don't believe you even believe what you are arguing.
You having incoherent responses and this accurately being pointed out doesnt give you a license to pretend that this is errant shit slinging as opposed to you being unable to come up with cogent backing for your stated opinions.
The obvious projection here is incredible. I'm supposedly shit slinging while you pretend that not buying your insane opinions with no reasoning to them must mean I am clueless. Most obvious bad faith participation there has ever been.
You focused on the first rather than the latter because the latter is pretty obviously a likely occurrence. You've indicated multiple times in the previous comment you can't even deny that ICE ramping up isnt disastrous.
There are already plenty of people calling these secret police on their neighbors.
You're just playing with semantics if you continue to pretend this isnt a real concern.
No. You are attempting to downplay the seriousness of the situation because it makes you feel comfortable or you support it. Not sure which one, but neither is a good faith or objective view.
The ol "If I don't see it, it doesnt exist" after the "As a [minority] things are fine". Your demographic literally is not one of the ones currently on the chopping block yet, but you can clearly see them ramping up for that too with the supreme court rumoured to be looking at what constitutes marriage next. You're up right after interracial marriage.
More than that, as a white man, who passes social norms, you wouldn't be seeing this as someone who clearly does not know many if any marginalized people given your responses here.
Further, given that its a very vanishingly small amount of high density areas that are not blue, it likely means you aren't living where the troubles are happening. Somehow this makes you believe they wont spread.
This isn't a point that is being debated. Its just something you've thrown up as if its at all relevant to the current discussion of whether future violence is likely.
The Nazis also ran with a tuned version of Christianity. This is literally not a point of worth in any respect. The fact they have choosen a religion to band around politically is actually a huge red flag.
By lying through omission, which I pointed out, and which you still have not addressed in any capacity whatsoever.
Propaganda is the mechanism, hate is the outcome. You arent making a point here.
No, no they would not. The democratic party tried to do that. They went with racism instead.
That is, unless you mean somehow minorities need to prove to the hateful that they deserve life, which would be an absurd take.
Literally no one is arguing that they are squeaky clean. Not a single person doesnt advocate for them as the significantly less evil of 2 evils.
This is reality.
This point right here to me is the think that has really stuck out. This makes me think you are a closeted conservative. That you are currently pretending to have liberal/leftist viewpoints, because not a single democrat I have ever talked to has ever believed this, and no one would even believe someone would honestly feel the need to make such an argument given that no one believes it.
This is the same ol rhetoric of "meet in the middle" where non maga takes one step forward, and maga takes 2 steps back, and then says "meet in the middle" again.
People have mostly wizened up to this nonsense. There is no "calm" middle ground between fascism and not fascism.
"Hey people just ignore reality because if you point out the obvious heading, that means you support it!" - Your logic right now.
Given the point above with me being convinced you aren't honest with your views, Im sure youll have some long reply, but I doubt its in good faith, and I don't think anyone is reading down this far, so it probably won't be worth spending this much time on responding to.
I would say I hope you become a better person, but anyone willing to be this deceitful isnt the type of person who even internally believes that they are doing what is right.
I'm not in bad faith, I'm not being deceitful, I'm not projecting, and I'm not attempting to twist anything intentionally. You have consistently thrown out insults from the get-go and I was willing to continue engaging respectfully and did so.
Insulting me does not make your arguments ring true to those who are reading.
Interesting that you think illegal kidnapping, unabated corruption, and disassembly of government institutions is theater.
I can say safely that it's set in the context of theater with all the propaganda flying around, but there are real things happening through carefully crafted circumstances and framing. If you understood my intentions you would realize what I really meant instead of smearing me.
Nobody smearing I merely find your stance interesting.
Fair enough. A criminal reality show host becoming president in 2016 was the moment where I began holding this perspective if that interests you.
Trump has power because he knows how to work his base. It's undeniable to me that a person who understands television and building one of the biggest cults ever in history isn't still performing, on some levels.
The propaganda is so good nobody in his base realizes he has cognitive decline and isn't fit for office. It's a gargantuan effort to make propaganda this good - there's a lot of people whose jobs are literally spinning everything to fit their preferred narrative and selling it to their far-right base.
Even liberal mainstream media is responsible for constantly sanewashing Trump and this administration.
So, what kind of gun can I buy that will let me defend myself from a tyrannical reaper drone?
Or maybe planning to fight your enemy where he is strongest is fucking dumb?
A gun does not defend you from a drone. It defends you from other people who are emboldened to commit crimes against you.
The point later in the comment is about what happens if the government fully turns in the citizens. Protecting yourself is midway to that.
You basically can't let it get that far or you're just cooked.
No, it doesn't defend you. At best, it will give you a chance to shoot back. Statistically speaking, the person you are most likely to use a gun on is yourself, second most likely victim of your gun is your spouse.
That's nice, but those statistics are from a different time with a different threat profile.
We are long done with pretending we're living in a reasonable society.
Actually, about 27,000 people in the US committed suicide by gun last year, compared to 16,000 non-suicide gun deaths, and apparently the gun suicide to gun deaths ratio actually went up from 2023.
Did you not at all read my comment?
I knew the stats before you mentioned them, I'm pointing out there are clear differences to society right now that make this data far less relevant.
Your actually implies you're arguing against an argument I've made but you aren't at all.
Ah, so you think (without any evidence) that the trend suddenly and drastically reversed itself in the last 10 months and no one bothered to report on it?
You are seemingly purposefully misconstruing my argument and that is annoying.
Clearly the point is a new danger exists, why you keep insisting on the strawman argument against the position that gun stats arent real, something I've never indicated, I do not know.
I can only think its in bad faith because you don't have arguments against the actual opinions I've shared.
Can you point to any statistics for this new danger. Specifically, can you point to any metrics which show that a firearm is more likely to be used defensively than it is to be used on yourself or your spouse? I do believe that was exactly what you meant when you said...
If that is not what you meant, then you need to clarify that statement. I haven't built a strawman, I pointed out that the current trend for suicidal gun use is increasing, and without any evidence showing a dramatic change in the ratio of self-inflicted firearm deaths to all other firearm deaths, then it is clear that your position is incorrect, and you are moving goalposts in order to avoid admitting that your position is incorrect despite the publicly available data.
You've absolutely built a strawman. You obviously understand the new risks we're talking about given the subject of the article and the context, but yet you continue to imply this is about traditional gun statistics and not the ever increasing and looming threat of violence from neighbors who support the regime.
What new risks? You haven't mentioned any new risks, and you certainly haven't put forward any evidence that those risks are changing the ratio of gun suicides to all other gun deaths. You just got feelings and vibes that something is happening without any data to back it up. Meanwhile data trends show that the ratio of gun suicides to all other gun deaths is actually went up last year, which is a complete refutation of your point.
If you can't defend your argument with anything more than "feelings" then there is no point to discuss further, as your only tactic in this conversation is on par with brainless maga trolls.
To put it simply for you... Show metrics supporting your argument that there are new risks which is lowering the ratio of gun suicides to all other gun deaths (which is the exact argument you made), or admit that your position is incorrect.
Ok, at this point I've explained the hell out of my point and can only conclude you are a troll. You've made 0 effort to figure out what I am saying, so clearly the strawman you started with is the hill you want to go to die on.
The fact you call this conversation "on par with brainless maga trolls" is more evidence you just intended to rile me up while completely knowing exactly what threat I am talking about as people are being disappeared off of streets and hate crimes are being covered up. Clearly people should wait for the historians to have a perspective on this as the regime increasingly cancels studies on societal problems.
I don't have the energy for that.
Ah, another empty reply, with no evidence to support your position.
If the full force of the FBI, military, and local law enforcement turns against the citizenry the citizenry is cooked.
Hopefully our fellow citizens will balk at killing their neighbors, but if they don't, shotguns and handguns are only useful to increase the cost of enforcement on the gestapo.
They didn't balk when their neighbors were being rounded up by the new gestapo and shipped off to extra-national slave prison camps.
Hope springs eternal. Preparations should be made for darker futures.