I’m feeling so uneasy with everything I’ve been seeing. I keep thinking about what we will be this time next year, and if shit hits the fan, what is your plan? I’m queer and was politically active in 2020, so I would potentially be considered a political enemy.
The only blueprint I can think of is what you do in an active shooter situation; Flee, Hide, Fight.
I know there’s that romantic notion of “don’t be a coward, get out and protest”, but I remember the brutality of the 2020 protests firsthand, and even then I thought “thank god I’m going toe to toe with the CPD and not the CCP”. Next time is going to be different. The president now has authority to send drone strikes. Protests and riots don’t stand a chance agains missiles and live rounds.
Flee- I have an Uncle in Montreal who my family could potentially use as a way to at least temporarily escape the chaos. The hope I’d have is that Canada and other countries would accept American refugees, however that’s not a guarantee.
Hide- If borders are closed, lay low and move away from major cities if possible. If civil war breaks out, try to get away from the violence even if you think your side will win. Todays losers may be tomorrows victors.
Fight- If cellular data/ social media algorithms can keep track of you, and surveillance can make sure there’s no movement, this would be the last resort of desperation. I guess if possible try to either find a group for safety in numbers, or conversely go guerrilla as groups of resistance would make easy targets.
Sorry my mind is running and I’m getting scared.
I can’t be the only one to roll my eyes at comments like this. Like in one respect I get it, we want to say we will fuck up the fascists. But on the flipside, what the fuck are you guys actually suggesting here?
Bear in mind per Propublica reporting that the right-wing extremist groups want to incite a race/Civil War. They hate the fact that there is such a stark contrast in violence between the left and right and it’s making them look TERRIBLE.
Bear in mind firearm manufacturers are actively trying to break into the leftist market to sell more guns. Pretty obvious.
Forgetting the evidence that guns for all intents don’t make you safer. We need to use our brains before bullets, lest we’ve all already lost.
I’d say it’s a reaction to where ammosexual conservatives talk as if they have all the guns and would therefore win instantly in the civil war scenarios they masturbate over.
Fair I can see that. In the event they threw the first punch a la Fort Sumter, it may take a while for the left to spin up but I have no doubt they’d get steamrolled as they always do, from the Confederacy to the Third Reich.
After all, we’d just have to wait for their heart meds to run out.
You seem to be taking an “either / or” approach here. In my opinion the left should do everything possible to avoid violence, and also own guns in case these efforts are unsuccessful. It doesn’t need to be one or the other.
It’s really kind of a matter of definitions to me. In my view, there exist situations where a firearm is about the only way to prevent super bad outcomes for myself. Those situations are uncommon, there are many good ways to avoid them usually, and I hope to never find myself in one. But by definition, if I find myself in a situation like that, having a firearm available is the difference between having agency and having none.
Some people feel that the likelihood of such a scenario is so small that it’s a bad idea to prepare for it. Maybe this is how you feel? I do understand that point of view, I simply disagree. I don’t really understand points of view that seem to argue there is no scenario where firearms are useful, or that we’re magically “past that” as a society (and to be clear, I’m not sure you’re taking that stance). To take one example, just look at the response to Hurricane Katrina as an example of how flimsy our law and order really is. Once a situation is bad enough to overwhelm the existing structures we have in place, all bets are off and rules for behavior evaporate. We’ve seen this happen, in our country, in our lifetimes, more than once. I don’t understand the derision - why eye roll?
Fair points.
I view it mostly as either/or chiefly for two reasons:
The statistics to me suggest that the possession of a firearm generate greater alternative risks than the probability of the positive use-case we all imagine in our heads. For me, I am not in a bad neighborhood. Nobody is out to get me. Despite how bad things have become, we are a long ways away from some civil war. So to me it’s a net-negative.
Any time focused on firearms is time taken away from focusing on preventative measures to shift this country in the right direction. One more phone conversation with a friend or relative on the fence to alter their vote to me is far more impactful at preventing what we all come to fear.
I roll my eyes because some people get very gung-ho akin to the whole “fuck around find out” vibes of righties that I cannot stand. Big talk almost yearning for civil war when they’re focusing on the wrong things.
Ah, those are reasonable points of view to me. I think responsible gun ownership is fairly straightforward and the statistics look that way because of the extremely irresponsible folks who don’t take it seriously, and because suicide is usually included. Proper gun safety really only requires diligently following a few simple rules, make those consistently followed - habitual - and the additional risk drops to pretty close to zero.
But I concede that owning a gun does - at again just a definitional level - create a path of escalation which is almost always inappropriate to pursue, which is not available without that gun, and that’s inherently risky too. It’s not a decision to be taken lightheartedly, but we all face risk at varying degrees and have to make our own decisions about what are good and bad tradeoffs there.
There are a lot of folks (of all political persuasion, which is not to say it’s evenly distributed at all) who are definitely LARPing, and I think their idiot rhetoric is foolish and potentially harmful. I just think the quiet gun-owning left shouldn’t be automatically associated with that group, and if I remember the original comment right, I don’t think the poster indicated any hidden desire for violence.
I agree that we should be discussing and insisting on action for way more substantive and impactful stuff, guns are a ridiculous wedge issue that will never be “resolved”, and our limited time is definitely better spent trying to force improvements that would benefit and be popular with a majority of people.
I’m kind of coming around on the idea of liberal/progressive gun ownership. Maybe we should start hitting the gun shows and buying them off the cons. If we have enough to scare them, maybe we can get some sensible gun laws passed too, then turn them all in like Australia did.
But only if we can follow the example of Swiss-like compulsory service and training. I have some liberal friends who I do not want handling guns.
Edit to add: I have some conservative acquaintances that also shouldn’t be anywhere near firearms either, but of course they already own dozens.
I’m not ready to recommend others become gun owners, that’s too personal a decision, but I do think it’s unwise for only one side of a major political rift (manufactured / artificially maintained as it may be) to be well armed. Especially when law enforcement is also overwhelmingly on that same political side that’s already well armed. Especially when that same political side is the source of the folks who said “we better storm the capital to make sure elections turn out how we think they should”.
I’m okay with brief compulsory service, in favor of “sensible gun laws”, and firmly against any approach to full disarmament at present - that solution could only be remotely feasible after maybe a full generation where firearm ownership was not a hot button issue. Any approach to disarmament in the US without a long quiet period would be received as hostile action by ~half of the country and rejected categorically, along with any good will on other issues. We need to drop that and find people to elect who will cooperate on issues of broad popularity.
As a liberal gun owner, I can’t agree more. I hate that I have to own a gun to feel safe. I have been within 1 mile of no less than 5 mass shootings, and in 2 scenarios where I had to put my hands on my gun ready to use in the last 5 years. My wife was 100 yards from the shooter at the Texas State Fair shooting last year.
I own guns to protect my family. I also own them in case civil war breaks out and all my right-wing, crazy neighbors lose their shit.
There never is a suggestion. It’s never thought through. It’s all just abstract. Civil war is an abstract thought that can be talked about without anyone needing to consider how it would actually play out.
So how does it work? Do conservatives from Texas take a greyhound bus to california, get out, and start blasting indiscriminately? Do they stop people on the street and randomly ask their political views before blasting?
It’s hard to have a civil war when your enemy is ill defined. People arent going to be standing in fields with blue and grey uniforms.
What is more likely to happen is simply clashes during protests .
Guns dont mass murder people, mass murderers do.
Blaming guns wont fix social injustice and wealth inequality, so you’ll just end up creating the next unabomber or OKC bombing.
Shit will only get worse if we dont focus on the underlying issues.
Well, more accurately, mass murders with guns do. I’m not saying we ban guns. But let’s not ignore half the issue. It’s mental health and easy access to weapons of mass murder. Some gun control makes sense. Doing something about mental health makes sense.
But you’ll never see a Republican vote for either. Government provided mental health programs? That’s communism! They are fine to let both problems run rampant.
Im ok with barriers of entry, 5 day waiting period, etc.
Im less ok with people carving lines in the sand on a wedge issue and instead focus on ones that has high approval ratings and enact change.
Medicare for all/single payer is widely popular and would greatly reduce mental health issues in America.
Legalizing cannabis will also help.
UBI and the like arent quite as popular, so will be more difficult for those things that curb poverty to get passed, but probably still easier than banning guns in USA.
Sure, but the guns help.
Try for a mass casualty event with some knives. It’s doable, but you have to work for it.
In the hospital we address both the disease as well as the symptoms. If the symptoms aren’t controlled, the prognosis of the disease is worse.
A deranged person who slips through the cracks of society can inflict more devastation with a firearm than a knife, as seen time and time again.
So sure let’s focus on underlying issues. But let’s stop pretending aRmInG tHE leFt will do jack shit, too.
Cool so when they come for you, you’ll be unarmed.
🤔
Ah yes, I’ll have my Mini-14 and 1911 and fend them off as the mighty hero as the nation burns to the ground!!
…
You probably slipped about 20 steps where you could’ve had more viable impact at preventing that. You also are probably distracting yourself with hero fantasies when you could be more focused on something else.
Forgetting the fact that mere possession of a firearm in your house elevates your risk of everything from a safety accident, domestic homicide, suicide, etc. That are probably all more probabilistic than you defending yourself from roaming right-wing mobs.
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