TFG and the domestic terrorist GOP have weaponized the 2nd amendment against us,

[duforsure]

By inciting violence, and making people feel victimized if they lose the right to have and own a weapon designed to murder people in war, while weaponizing the 2nd amendment to be used to terrorize the American people. By TFG and the GOP using this to divide and incite people , and make more guns available , the violence was going to increase to levels we've never seen before, and now has.

[RockRaven]

1. They're just getting started with their depravities. The only way out is making every election, at

every level, every year, without a single failure -- for decades -- about a near apocalyptic struggle to stop this shithole way of being they have brought about. That sort of unrelenting effort is how they brought it about, and it's the only way to reverse it.

[duforsure]

2. Agree 100%

[2naSalit]

4. +1

[cilla4progress]

3. They fetishize

guns and the 2nd amendment

[2naSalit]

5. They weaponize everything.

Every thing.

[Johnny2X2X]

6. Republicans are explicitly calling for violence and it's been normalized

Remember, "Second Amendment Solutions"? That was a big deal back then, now it's just normal. Republican politicians across the country are running violent campaign ads, they're giving speeches advocating violence outright, and the media is mute on it now. Political violence is now acceptable apparently.

This is going to get worse, no one is even lifting an eyebrow anymore when the latest Republican calls for violence against their politcal enemies surfaces.

[KPN]

7. Personally, I can't help but think it's all part of the Koch and other

conservative monied interests’ grand long-term strategy to upend democracy and seize permanent control of our government. Amping up 2nd Amendment rights and co-opting the NRA enabled the formation of a relatively vast right wing militia that could actually be needed and called on to secure control. It already has been — J6. Some of it is organic, but a lot of it has been intentionally fertilized to create a right wing volunteer army. No proof, but can’t help but think just like the long game strategy of gaining control at local and State levels first, this has been part of their overall strategy to achieve their ultimate goal as well. The mass shootings to them are just an unfortunate sidebar.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. Unfortunately, not "just an unfortunate sidebar" ...

See, e.g.,

https://www.pbs.org/show/dictators-playbook/

and

In total, the Republican fascists are working to create an American version of what the pro-Nazi German legal theorist and philosopher Carl Schmitt described as a state of "exception," in which the Constitution and the rule of law no longer apply. Once that occurs, a fascist leader and his followers can act without restraint to impose their will on the larger society.

Fascist violence is a distinguishing feature of the Age of Trump and America's accelerating democracy crisis.

Paul Gosar's death-threat video is no joke — it's part of the Republican terror strategy
[ 2021 ]

and

Donald Trump, his Republican Party and their news media use scripted violence and stochastic terrorism to encourage political violence against their "enemies" — usually nonwhite people, Muslims, Democrats, liberals and progressives, as well as reporters and journalists who are not affiliated with Fox News or other parts of the right-wing propaganda machine.

Trump supporters are especially compliant foot soldiers. Throughout Trump's campaign and now time in office, from the so-called "MAGA bomber" to now the alleged El Paso white supremacist terrorist, they have internalized the logic of weaponized white identity politics and then acted upon it with often lethal results

Donald Trump, white supremacist violence, and American surrender: The connections are clear [ 2019 ]

Even though it's only tangentially related to your comment, I can't resist posting this one, which predicts the January 6th coup about a year in advance:

In your book you discuss the idea that Donald Trump will have his own version of Hitler's Reichstag fire to expand his power and take full control of the government by declaring a state of emergency. How do you think that would play out?

'It's pretty much inevitable' that Trump will try to stage a coup and overthrow democracy: Yale historian Tim Snyder

As for Koch involvement:

Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual linchpin of the Koch-funded attack on democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean

Meet the Hidden Architect Behind America's Racist Economics

[KPN]

10. Good stuff. I won't argue with any of that one bit. The only people who might see it as

I described are perhaps some of the lemmings, the morons who follow them and believe these shootings are a cost of having their 2nd amendment freedoms. But you are right, it's calculated and intentional at its base. Thanks for that.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

8. radical Republican terrorists want you (n/t)