Azal

It's impossible to tell /s

Oh yea, it was mostly an agreement and add on.\

Getting shot with rock salt is no fun, though

I've not had to do it, but personally IMO, if you have to fire a gun due to self defense, I'm not a fan of less than lethal rounds. If things have gotten to "I need to fire a gun" it's buckshot where I'm at. But you say firing a shotgun in enclosed space will dissuade home invaders...

I think just the racking of a shotgun will do that. There are few sounds in the US that I think are as distinctive as a pump action shotgun being racked. Nor one that instills brownpants syndrome.

Republicans might be ok with the brain drain helping them stay in power, but I don’t see how the residents are ok with being left further and further behind

If I go off my state... they just cover their ears and scream real loudly and ignore the problem.

First… I’m not reading all that

So... seeing as I wasn't actually talking to you, beginning like that I'd like to know how the fuck you actually thought you'd get any message across beginning like that.

A good chunk of the post had absolutely nothing to do about the red/blue states or voting so go off I guess.

However

but are you aware that there are 2 congressional districts up for re-election this week to replace members who accepted cabinet positions

And how did that work out? Oh. People still voted Red? Double digit victories? I'm shocked I tell you. shocked.

They were damaged by the last administration. And the Bush administration. Their states are the ones which are hellholes that get shittier and shittier with jobs leaving out and poorer and poorer. It becomes more difficult to actually leave red states because affording to get the fuck out is nearly impossible. When they vote on something that makes things better, the state government overrides them saying they didn't know what they were voting on.

YET THEY ALWAYS VOTE THIS WAY

They will not figure it out. They are lost to the cult. I don't know what fucking Piece of Eden the republicans got hold of to control them but holy fuck living in a red state is just like that comic up there, they look at the person who says they hate them and says "He tells it like it is."

I'll express from someone living in a red state. The fuck am I going to do? I'm over half a thousand miles away from the state he's fucking with, and he's probably not there most of the time and again thousands of miles over, with all the power of money to get him wherever the fuck he wants to go vs my little car.

So build up support. A third of this country voted for this, and a third of this country sat out. So you've got a third that's actively angry about this, but scattered literal thousands of miles across the country. Kinda hard to gather to this. Sure we gather to protest but this administration isn't going to give two shits about it, this entire situation is proving that. But gathering and protesting IS the power we have so we're doing that. Unfortunately the cameras aren't on that because the people supporting this are the ones with the media.

As someone put it, most of us are slaves to our paychecks, living on the barest margin of survivability, and that's been the way for decades. Y'all get to see the chest thumping "America is the greatest place!" but lets be honest, most of us are so disaffected that what we're watching is the horror of a monster taking over, but the country we were raised in and told to love there will be very little sadness when its gone, just sadness for how evil it will become. But that living paycheck to paycheck means in order for me to go somewhere where I can maybe put up resistance because right now I'm surrounded by people who support this... and these are the people who have been arming up in ready for a war for years... would be to uproot completely, and even the bluest of blue states would happily let me die in a gutter if I don't have job. So either I stay and support people who will be hurt when it gets worse, or I become at best a martyr, or at worst, another statistic that the news may not even bother reporting.

The answers will vary, but why are we allowing this to happen? I'll say my answer, some of us have been fighting this for years, over a decade since the Tea Party got mad that a black man was president, have been struggling to change the trajectory of this ship away from the iceberg. But I've seen the people of my country as a whole grab the wheel, lock the door and say it's their god given right to drive into the iceberg. So at this point in the analogy I'm just gathering life preservers and making sure people have them on even as many of them will tell me the ship is unsinkable.

I appreciate it. I really wish I weren't in my situation either and if I had the means I'd be getting me and my parents the fuck out of here. But stuck with it and just trying to figure out the best way to help those that will be in more danger than I. I've got at least the luck of looking like the people that are taking over (the downside is that's why I can discuss the way I do, I get to hear it from them because they look at me and think "Oh he'll be on our side.") but I know I will never be safe.

When you say part of it will be reality, that's the point I'm really going down. Even with the wall of text, it still looks neat and tidy how the battle lines will be drawn, and the US has a bad habit of thinking like that, all our wars have been pretty "This side vs This side" even back to our civil war. But what will be coming is a war where the sides will be best expressed as a "gagglefuck of people." Hopefully when blood is spilled there may get some sense and we figure out how to pull out of the nosedive, but to have hope would make me an optimist.

At least I did laugh about the thoughts and prayers, and appreciate you not sending any more. Thanks to the Republicans after every shooting we have so many that we're swimming in them.

I really would love the kicking the Trump admin in the ocean, but living in a red state that is cheering for this, I don't think that's going to happen.

Collapse, that's far more likely and will look rather middle east 2.0. Our biggest states money wise are on the west coast and more politically aligned with Canada than anyone, and our east coast is more European minded. There's a reason in the US a constant whining is "Coastal elites" so the political fight is going to go after them, especially if they resist any wars for expansion which is going to be the case. If things get bad enough, they potentially would secede which would lead to another civil war, which was caused by the last batch of secessionists.

The thing is, the people who are aligned with this administration are the ones that still support the southern secession, now if the Republicans didn't have double standards they'd have no standards at all so I don't expect them to take the will of blue states breaking off as "See, we were right all along" and instead go for an attack instead.

The trouble with... all of that... and why I say it'll look like the middle east is when that goes down, we're going to lose our nice dividing "red/blue Republican/Democrat left/right" divisions... which normally would be great, except it's going to be all sorts of ideological areas in active combat. Those that have fully shoved the current administrations rhetoric down their throat will be pro-expansionisitic. They're actually a pretty tiny minority, I'm surrounded by Trump voters at work and when I tell them about the "51st state" or annexation of Greenland rhetoric they're horrified. Partially because the draft has always been in our mind and now they're considering their kids going to war with a former ally... these guys mock Canada, but invading has never been in the thought process in our lives to the point that most people forget the war of 1812 happened.

But the largest church in the United States is the Catholic church, which until the last decade has really seemed to have been politically out of it, but now it's been putting pressure on Rome to the point the Pope has called it out. I've been waiting to see if we'd end up with a US Anti-Pope. The trouble is, the MUCH MORE politically powerful church is the second biggest single church in the US, AND the biggest of the current religion in the US, Protestantism, headed up by the Southern Baptist Church. The Southern Baptists were created pre-Civil War literally over the purposes of slavery, and while they have shut up about slavery they keep their southern roots and having grown up down there... they've been ready to go to war for years against the "Mary Worshipers" and "Jesus killers" (Catholics and Jews) to turn the country into the "Rightful Christian country it should be." So now we potentially might be getting a nice religious civil war going down, we've got waiting in the wings the Mormons, they're an odd bunch, very insular. One of their tenants is to be prepared for the end times and build communities together, effectively it's a religion of doomsday preppers. They're by far a smaller group, but far less infighting and as I say, are prepared for "The Collapse". And the biggest concentration of them is in Salt Lake City, Utah... where the great salt lake is drying up and the dirt under it is toxic and being blown over the city. But that's fine... their holy land where they expect Jesus to descend is just East of Kansas City in Missouri... where the reason they're not really there in force is because Missouri literally had a law to legalize hunting Mormons in the 1800s, so surely no bitterness there. The Southern Baptists is biggest concentrated from Florida to Texas, the Catholics have the biggest gathering in Chicago so that nice North/South thing will come up again, now with a potential holy crusade in the middle from a third group.

OKAY, so we've got the religious fights I've been hearing rumblings my entire life going, but religion is taking a back seat, lets see what else we have happening. The South wants to bring back Jim Crow against the blacks, but surely that'd be localized, the South has never attempted to pressure states to do what they want to do (see the Fugitive Slave Acts to see how dripping with sarcasm that is.) Frankly the South has been ready to restart its Civil War for the past 160 years, and I've been saying the Trump administration is them winning it, so you'll have a racial war going down in the same time, and if you look up the Tulsa Race Riots, you'll see the US really knows how to go all out on a race war.

Now just political ideology wars. Sure, as I said, only the most hard core MAGAts want to go to war with other countries, but this country has been spending the last 20 years splitting the political ideologies from each other to a point I have no idea how we can come together. I have had to keep my mouth shut politically in jobs because I'm always outnumbered and retaliation can happen. Because of such I get to hear such wonderful things about how they believe Democrats are pedophiles and believe the Pizzagate thing. Now of course I think Republicans are unforgiveable fascists... but holy fuck it's not like I don't have a massive pile of evidence on that one, but that shows even the bias of I have no idea how I can ever trust one again. For the most part, the left is in the cities and the right is in the country. So of course the right wingers keep saying "Fine, we can cut off cities out of food" but dont' realize the numbers of people and guns do outnumber in the cities, and when people start starving they will invade. It won't save the cities, people will die if that goes down as people in this situation tend to not think in the long term and will destroy instead of trying to grow... and but the country folk won't make it through any better... yet seem perfectly willing to think they can try.

And finally, the one that's more theoretical as I only have some historic perspective to work off of, but I've heard no rumblings about it, however movements seem to show it. Company towns. We did have some history of towns owned entirely by companies, where you were paid in company scrip and the company owns your home. I grew up in the hometown of WalMart, and I've made "jokes" about the Walmart military being the security, but Arkansas has weak gun laws, walmart has a massive security operation, has made it a point that if you want to do business with them you have to move to their home area and has made sure to clear out any competition. There are surrounding towns that papers are finding that the Walton family ends up owning 75%+ due to shell corporations to buy up the land of the towns. Amazon has been trying to take over towns with their distribution centers, running anything out and running on low taxes but they're really decentralized, and President Musk has outright stated wanting to bring back company towns. Now, there aren't many willing to fight and die for a company here. Left and Right, most people hate these major corporations (but not enough hate to stop giving them money and power), but thinking about Bentonville, if things go down like I'm predicting above, you'll have these very powerful companies that have consolidated land and people and has enough money to effectively buy a military... well security becomes a "militia" to protect the stability of the town, now people can get on board with that. Once the militia has stabilized the area around where it's not in danger from the fighting... now what? People belong to that company. And then while the others are fighting, they can expand. We may see a rise of feudalism within the US.

I realize this is all tin foil hattery, but this is a perspective of someone in the middle of it watching some of my tin foil hat predictions coming true and listening to what people are willing to yell about. This would probably be "entertaining" as in watching a train crash entertaining for all of you across the world, if it weren't for the part I never mentioned... the US military. Their ideologies are as split as the US... so all of the above will be trying to scoop up the military. Even companies have been some of the biggest hiring of former military for security, both digital and physical. Again, probably not so bad if we weren't bristling with nukes and at least a couple of these groups I mentioned in fighting are outright doomsday cults.

Thoughts from someone who lives in a state where the general populace, police and political leaders all are in agreement with the current administration and the nearest bastion that isn't completely surrounded is over 500 miles away. I'd say send help but if we get to that point, I'll be in the ground before yall get here.

All this is good advice, but adding a bit of clarification and $.02

If you’re looking at home defense, look at shotguns. Rifle bullets will go through drywall like it isn’t there, and shooting one in your house, you will hit stuff in other rooms that you don’t mean to. Even handgun bullets will go through drywall. Shotguns are the best home defense weapon, and a coach gun is both wieldy and enough.

Personally I'm of the opinion if you're the type to only have one gun, a shotgun is the gun to have. Birdshot won't go through drywall but there's a reason Cheney shooting a guy during the Bush era was much of nothing as he was "peppered", birdshot doesn't have a lot of power and while it can be lethal, it has more chance to not. Buckshot can and will go through drywall, what it does different than all of the others is it doesn't go through your neighbors wall as well, buckshot will stay relatively contained within your home.

The good of a shotgun is it can be a multi-use gun. Dad talked about where he grew up and hunting was a regular thing, a shotgun was all that was owned due to being poor. But that shotgun was used for birds and they didn't use buck for deer hunting but slug so they had distance. The downside of shotguns is range, you're not as accurate at a long range away. That said, it's not like video games where you have to be on top of whatever you're shooting at to do damage, what I mean is slug is pretty inaccurate at a pretty long distance whereas rifles are shot with the maximum range in mind. I've read about Taliban when fighting the US would use larger caliber rifles and shoot outside of the AR-15's range where the smaller bullet starts getting affected by wind resistance and take potshots. So... unless you're planning on that level of guerilla warfare and are really good shot, this will not be to your advantage. I know a few with rifles will complain about this, but y'all are already practicing. I'm not talking to you, but the newbie who may not know. Another big downside with a shotgun is finding a range that'll let you practice with them, it's a real bitch to find.

Rifles, in why they make good militia style defense in the modern era is again the range capabilities, they're the easiest to hand someone and they'll be marginally lethal (if you're not ready for the kick of a 12 gauge shotgun slug it'll be a fun time for a newbie) and the number one factor of why they are the go to for shootings, ammo capacity. Your standard AR-15 civilian chambered .223 (military is the 5.56, you can still get them in civilian but buying off the shelf .223 is default) is 30 rounds. That's 30 bullets you can have in the air as fast as you can pull the trigger. Shotguns are much slower than this and a far far less capacity with a high capacity being 12 shells (there are others higher, but you're specifically looking for them.)

Now... all of this said, the BEST gun you can get is if you have a buddy who shoots on the regular and recommends. All the paper research in the world means shit if you're trying to figure out from the ground up when you have someone who can go "Let me show you." Same token, take to range as said above and don't be afraid of asking questions of the people running the range. It's easy to find someone who thinks they know what they're doing and teach you something dangerous.

And since this conversation is on the people who are looking at their first gun, I'll tell you the first rule. Don't point it at anything you don't want destroyed, ever. The gun is a tool and like any tool it has no morality. But as a tool it is good at only one job, destruction at a range. As such there's a constant history of people thinking they're unloaded right until they find out through injury or death. If you treat the tool with the respect for its job, you'll be fine. When I'm sighting at a store, I aim up away from people, when I'm at a house it's always aimed at the ground. All these are after making sure it's unloaded, and if I'm at home I have a device that goes into the chamber to make sure it's not loaded. But even still, if I need to bring it up to check something, after all this I still aim at the direction where no one lives. All that can be excessive, but all it takes is one fuckup. And this attitude of respect is the same I pay to a machine press or tablesaw, or any other tool that has a label on it "Warning, this will kill you."

Apologies, tone of voice didn't carry. I was being completely sarcastic on that, part of why I called him what I did. It's apparently one of the very few names that piss him off, yet he was an amazing tool for Moscow, arguably a better one than Trump. Trump is a five year old with a shotgun, no plan and running around screaming... and Trump wouldn't be able to pull off a damn thing if Mitchy hadn't literally shredded so much of the US for him.

There is so very little to have hope for and celebrate in the situation we're in, but I can take at least a huge helping of schadenfreude watching McConnell get EVERYTHING he wanted yet be off the throne and reviled by the people he propped up. Truly, my hope is that his freezes finally hits and is permanent while he's still conscious and is forced to live and watch longer trapped away before he burns in hell.

It takes a lot for me to hate someone, it takes a lot more for me to wish evil upon someone. I cannot think of a single person that I have this level of just absolute hatred for, many are more mask off evil, but Moscow Mitch will go down in history as the architect of the US's destruction.

Oh look, Moscow Mitch has figured it out!

I'm in Missouri so definitely the case, but you're missing Arkansas in that list too.