This is hopefully going to be great, preventing the NIMBY’s from stopping higher-density housing focused near public transit. I am in a Sacramento suburb and there’s huge empty lots right near the bus lines near the freeway; if those can become high-density housing for people that can have less reliance on cars, it’d be huge for this area. Even a small % nudge would be beneficial.
I think the scenarios where a gun helps me defend against any sort of organized fascist government are nonexistent. My local police effectively could assault a small nation with the equipment they have, no amount of handguns/shotguns/rifles can combat that, let alone the national guard who have access to drones, planes, surveillance, armored vehicles, body armor, and the ability to effectively infinitely resupply. There is no guerilla winning a hot war against a fascist government in 2025 unless you’re willing to sacrifice a generation of lives.
I think the % likelihood of scenarios where a family member or child defeats the security and has access to something that can do unnecessary harm are well above zero. I think the scenarios where I bring a gun into a situation that MIGHT warrant it, but that would result in an escalation instead of a de-escalation, are equally likely.
I figured out my dad’s safe combo and had access to his guns when I was an early teen. I expect my kids to have the same capabilities and curiosities. This isn’t a movie or a book, the real risk/rewards clearly make firearm ownership a non-starter for me.
I wouldn’t say I’ve given up, but I think my forms of resistance are invisible. We’re seeing a ton of censorship and media repositories and resources being attacked. My spouse is a physician, and they may have been part of some groups of physicians on Facebook that did peer organizing, and that is no longer a safe space, so I use my sysadmin skills to maintain private social networks for them to collaborate on; I am also doing a large archiving service that is semi-private using zimit and mwoffliner to go into kiwix so the government can’t kneecap their ability to provide medical care that may include things dis-favorable to the regime. I regularly snapshot and offline critical resources to them via a network of crawlers I maintain.
Can I ask honestly what you think we should be doing? I’m a traditionally Democratic voter in California, I have 2 kids, I don’t own guns. Should I go buy guns and wage a 1-man war against a military with tanks and drones a thousand miles from my house? Should I tell my kids “sorry, I know you like going to the park with me, but I have to go on a suicide mission because the principle is more important than the chances of success.” I think the concept that Americans have rolled over to fascism is pretty unfair; we’re a country as big as other continents and just because a strategic selection of districts were targeted by the minority in a way that “won the game” doesn’t mean people aren’t on the precipice of participating in something that actually looks like it would have a chance at success. There are no options for resistance right now that feel like the would even come close to be worth the risk to my family.
I’ve lobbied, marched, donated to causes, had honest talks with people on the other side trying to convince them empathetically rather than berating them, and to be honest, getting anything I’ve done hand-waved away by passive aggressive comments is as defeating as anything else. I’m pretty sure a big reason fascism is taking over is because people get their energy out by making increasingly vitriolic internet comments which is as inconsequential as it gets. Americans don’t organize until things get truly intolerable, and this frog boiling going on hasn’t crossed the line enough for people to reach critical mass.
Wonderful, set precedent that the 2nd amendment is totally subject to the whim of the president. Then let’s flip all of government in 2028 and work on fixing this gun problem once and for all.