You put the equivalent of mobsters in the White House and suddenly these checks don't matter. As a country we fucked around and found out.

Seriously I tried warning people but they were certain that our existing laws would hold up. It's heartbreaking.

I see no signs of that militia. Where are you? I don't even see signs of mass protest. Just idle chat online. Theres alarm, but its all complacent, Land of the free, to sit around and watch their country burn. Yet they still make fun of the french for WWII.

At least the french know how to fucking riot.

A third of the population think this is a good guy with a gun authoritarian power so this is great. A third of the population are complaining about how the Democrats aren't good enough to vote for in the midterms, and a third of the population are busy arguing with the other 2 thirds.

Even the people who make shooting a tyrannical government their whole identity didn't bring their guns on Jan 6. It's always been hot air.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Many of us did see it coming. However, we have all still been culturally brainwashed to think that our government has too many checks for things to get this far out of hand.

The main question I have is that I’ve been hearing from Americans for decades now how gun ownership means you have a 2nd amendment based militia ready to go to protect the constitution and yet in the face of what is completely obviously the initial stages of a coup, I see no signs of that militia. Where are you?

This was always posturing. It was a dumb fantasy invented by the right to mythologize the country's origins, skew the intent of the framers, and most importantly, give them plausible deniability in the gun control debate.

If gun owners truly believed in the myth of the "people's militia" being a necessary apparatus to prevent government oppression or tyranny, they would have picked up their rifles and stopped the insurrectionists attacking the capitol building on January 6th, 2021. A literal violent coup and they sat back and did nothing. No - worse than nothing, they agreed with the people trying to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power!

The idiot masses won't stand up to tyranny with force or strength of arms, ever. The propaganda machine will convince Americans to shoot their neighbors long before they ever even think to shoot at their ruling class.

when you knew what he was going to do, he told you what he was going to do - why are you now in any way surprised or disturbed?

My guess is that people's reaction is more like: "I thought politicians lie? Why would they do this?"

I know Musk is not technically a politician, but the same confused reaction and bewilderment that you mentioned is applied to Trump's current actions as well.

Knowledge of that which is forthcoming, doesn’t prevent it from being disturbing when it arrives.

Because no one wants to be the first to start a revolution. No one wants to be a martyr to get the cause going. No one is desperate enough yet to put their life and freedom on the line.

I don't think shock and alarm really captures my thoughts.

I was deeply concerned by the prospect of a Trump presidency prior to November 5th. I've been despairing since then. Watching the current shit storm unfold I think I'm probably just discombobulated.

Because gun are for poor people to kill themselves, and Kamala was in favour of Israel so we let Trump get elected

I see no signs of that militia. Where are you?

nice try, officer

I see no signs of that militia. Where are you?

Spread out over the entire country, and mixed together with another militia that's opposed to them that's also probably 2-1 larger. The left isn't as armed

I'm neither shocked nor alarmed. I've known America was dead since November 5th. Now it's just a question of when/if I'll get out and the knowledge that at least I won't ever have kids to feed the fascists.

People are setting up some processes to respond to all of this. Not everything is worth reacting to as it’s a distraction.