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You and I see 2020 very differently. If anything i think the 2020 riots helped our case. The blue tribe base was forced to face what many in the opposition have been telling them for years, guns are already pretty well regulated, and when seconds count the cops are only minutes away. Yes the media and the democratic party establishment did their best to pillory who stood up to their shock-troopers, but they are also becoming increasingly irrelevant. Their attempts ultimately failed further damaging their credibility in the process. They might still be stupid enough to attempt to confiscation but my confidence in public willingness to resist and their subsequent failure has never been higher.
I'm likewise pretty confident that will to resist has never been higher. I'm more pessimistic about what the efforts at confiscation look like. One of the more heartening events in recent years was the attempt by the Canadian government to push through a federal gun registry. Canadian gun owners refused to comply, and the government was greatly embarrassed and dropped the whole thing.
The problem is, I don't think that's what it looks like if Blues attempt confiscation here. I don't think they'll try to actually go door-to-door. I think they'll pass a law, and put essentially zero effort into explicit enforcement at the mass citizen level. Why bother? They can use the law to crush companies and organizations that flout the rules: manufacturers, firing ranges, ammo and accessory companies, the wider ecology. They can go after anyone who looks to be serving as a figurehead, who speaks out or attempts to organize. They can use the law as a sentence enhancement and an additional prosecutorial hook for any other interaction a citizen might have with the cops. I don't think you're going to see a re-enactment of the War on Drugs, where they play endless whack-a-mole with individual people. The point won't be to catch all or even most of the people breaking the law. The point will be to make it significantly more expensive to be a Red, at little to no appreciable cost to Blues. And then if Reds manage to organize resistance, like, say, going the sanctuary route... well, cool, that's just more surface area. Does the financial sector want to be involved in rampant violations of federal law? Do major corporations want to do business in these areas? Maybe it's time for another one of those broad-based corporate boycotts of an entire state? And for the individuals, well, the gun isn't worth much if you don't shoot it, and that means a range of some kind. So does it become a pastime to just record who shows up at the ranges, and then send a hot tip to the feds for weapons violations? Sort of a federal endorsement for SWATing of a specific type of person?
One of the mistakes I feel like people on all sides of the culture war make, is failing to ask "what follows?" Blues do not know how to lose. Many of them don't appear aware that losing is even something possible for their side. When they reach a failure condition, they will escalate, and they will use their existing social, economic and political power to do it. The 2020 riots lasted months, and saw no shortage of violence. For the most part, Reds hunkered down and let the Blues own the streets. Those few who did otherwise were made examples of, and it seems pretty clear to me that those examples were taken to heart by the public at large. People stopped going out, stopped attempting defense or intervention, let the rioters have their way. Rooftop Koreans didn't really happen this time, not like in the 90s. Next time, will we see any attempt at all? Or will the advice be "learn from Kyle, learn from Bacca, stay the fuck home"?
All of this is speculative, and quite pessimistic, none of it is the actual end of the line, and it elides a number of other ways things could go. I guess the core of it is that I'm skeptical that Reds can defy formal power structures the way Blues historically have, and expect a good outcome. I think the most likely outcome is yet more escalation.
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