this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2026
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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Get a pepper spray instead of a gun?
Summary of this thread: hey literally nazis are taking power and planning on putting marginalized groups into camps eventually, but also wanting a gun makes you a pussy you fucking degenerate just talk it out
It's okay bro, when they come for you just call the police. Totally not an extremely privileged take. No way an area being targeted for raids would benefit from having higher rates of firearm ownership.
You are going to LOVE this one.
And yeah, everyone on my block has a gun. Well-off, poor, black, white, old, young, liberal, MAGA, everyone. (It's quite a diverse block!) No ICE around here, not even in this region.
I am in dread of watching the noose tighten. They'll be here soon enough.
You're right, that one is pretty perfect. Good luck to you and your community, stay strong. I'm sorry for everything you all are going through.
In this thread: Americans who literally cannot comprehend that they are not the only country on earth.
My post was about my specific past.
Grew up with guns used for hunting in the house. I'm not anti-gun and have shot as an adult.
The current political situation in the US has had me considering buying one.
Do so before it's too late to have that option. But it takes lots of time and money (ammo) to get the practice in. There's a reason LGBT, minorities and women have been the top first-time buyers for years now.
But please, please god, start leaning now. There is so much more to unpack that most people know, and that includes current gun owners.
I highly recommend Paul Harrell's videos (RIP). He's rather dry, with dry humor, but he's more expert than anyone I've seen. He starts with a question. What about this? He tests it, shows results, discusses how fair the test was, with zero judgment. His videos are a masterclass on how to present a topic and how to setup simple experiments and draw conclusions. He is a teacher above all else.
Here's one perfectly suited for you!
Top Ten Tips for Pandemic Gun Buyers
Let’s stop kidding yourselves, gun owners in this current regime situation are like a bunch of idiots standing at the cliff edge waiting for someone to jump, when you all know none of you are going to do shit.
I'm most worried about magat goon squads in lifted F250s rolling up in my inclusive small blue city neighborhood in a sea of red. Which I assure you I'll "do shit" about. But if you have some brilliant tactical plan feel free to lead the charge.
Buying into antigun rhetoric is one of the biggest missteps "the left" has made in recent decades.
We have an authoritarian fascist state coalescing as we speak and there are still leftists advocating gun control. It's a losing argument in the U.S. right now. I tell people as often as I can, especially my trans and bipoc friends; now is the time. Get a couple guns (a long one and a short one) and learn how to use them. Learn some basic first aid, you really just need to know how to stabilize someone. Start networking with like-minded people in your communities. The police will not protect us, they’ve proven they’ll happily club senior citizens to the ground and shoot any protesters in the face with rubber bullets while escorting a rightwing murderer to safety. Iran was a secular, liberal state until almost 1980 when they (mostly legitimately) elected an Islamist theocracy; it could happen here.
Our current situation really is the culmination of almost 70 years of rightwing efforts. It’s a long listen but worth checking out How Conservatism Won by Robert Evans. He lays out in a clear concise way “how a consortium of rich failsons got together to fund a network of right wing think tanks and shift American culture in a fun new direction. (note: it was not actually fun at all).” They’ve been very successful and those think tanks are now pipelines used to funnel ideological purists into powerful positions like our current Supreme Court.
The shadowy cabals the rightwing says are behind everything is classic projection again, they're controlled by shadowy cabals of rich people. One of the primary ghouls/traitors responsible for the attempted overthrow of our government on J6 was Roger Stone, the same traitorous ratfucker who began his career working for Nixon and has a fucking Nixon tattoo on his back. It's really impossible to overstate how bad these people are and they're winning.
The coup was successful, they're in power and if they don't want to give it up they won't.
Get to know people in your community. Take an interest in growing food, learn how to fix things. Establish secondary lines of communication and start preparing.
https://www.dsausa.org/
https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/
https://socialistra.org/
https://generalstrikeus.com/
https://afsc.org/news/how-create-mutual-aid-network
https://www.immigrantdefenseproject.org/raids/
https://mutualaidhub.org/
i replied elsewhere:
The reply was not on your ass! We all good!
But it's a solid reply to the poster above.
Copy/paste reply for you smug assholes:
I'm far more heavily armed than most. I could outfit my entire block, though they're already armed; young, old, liberal, MAGA. Yes, even the little old black lady across the street.
What the fuck do you want me to do? I'm sick of these smartass posts. Give me fucking instructions and be clear or STFU.
Fuck me. Saw what looked like an ICE thing in Alabama today, put my Colt .45 under my leg while trying to get my immigrant wife the hell back to Florida. There's a 12-gauge pump leaning on my desk 24x7 and the AR-15 leans on my nightstand. Being that there's no ICE around here, want me to hunt some down a couple of states away? Be clear in your instructions.
I now lock my doors, have a gun in reach everywhere I go and live in fear. And you assholes, "LOL! Where my 2A boys at?"
That's not a solution for a country of 340 million people. For even a quarter of the population.
Ok, that was unsensible, sorry.
Did you know pepper spray isn't as effective on some people as others? Even more so if the person is on certain drugs? Did you know that if an assailant is pretty close to you already or the wind is blowing at you, the pepper spray may leave you just as bad off as an attacker, or that pepper spray won't make a person drop a knife?
Hitting someone with pepper spray is fairly likely to stop an attack. Hitting someone with bullets will stop an attack.
How many school shooting has been done using pepper spray vs guns?
How many unintentional discharches has let to death with pepper spray vs guns?
How many drive by's have been done with stolen/illegal pepper sprays vs guns?
How many times police officers have been killes by a pepper spray vs gun, that perp took from the victims house?
How many times officers have mistaked victim as threath when they have had pepper spray vs gun on them?
Did you know that if assailant is pretty close to you or if you panic even a little, you might shoot yourself or miss the assailant completelly when pulling the trigger? Missing a shot won't make a person to drop a knife. Using gun may lead to somebody elses death than attackers.
If normal civilians did not have so many guns there would be less guns in rotation in the streets. The less there are guns in rotation the more expensive they are. Normal thugs wont use guns in petty robbery if they costs 15 000$ in black market, but if they can buy one from the street with 300$ you bet your ass the robber will bring the gun.
Also when its likelly that the perps have guns police will always act like they have guns leading to police using violence and excess force also in situations where its not needed.
You're talking like you'll be able to live in a country that could magically remove all the guns, keep em out, and never possibly need any against a tyrannical government.
I live in a country where there are about 30 guns per 100 citizens and over half of the adult males have served conscription and we have one of the lowest amount of gun related violence in the world because strick gun control
The tyrannical goverment argument is strawman. USA alredy has soldiers (national guard) walking in cities, minorities are unlafully detained by troops without showing any signia or seemingly needing any due process for their acts. Bombing and attacking neighboring countries, sinking civilian ships on international waters. 1.25 million citizens are in federal custody in system that is designed around to keep minorities in prisons whitout any care of rehibiliating them because the law essentially gives the goverment the right to use them as a slave labor. Your workers rights are a joke where any employee can be fired without any reason, unless they have managed to somehow unionise in the system that gives companies every change they can to crush unionising.
The second amendment is joke that people seem to cling on thinking some addition made to a paper, your president seem to ignore at every turn it suits them, would be somehow relevant in after hundreds of years have passes since people who wrote it have allready died. If it had any real meaning in the original meaning, there would allready be some militia rattling around.
Just google little around and look how mysteriously in countries with strick gun laws have less gun releated violence.
Good for you. I'm American and our culture is sick to the roots. It's not the number of guns per capita, it's the sick people.
So most of your argument seems to not have much to do with what is being discussed and a lot more to do with pivoting over to our government that's gotten all fucked up. Shouldn't you be off standing in a field somewhere?
And how excactly you responded to my comment about the pepper spray? Or how gun violence and gun laws go in hand to hand? Look how Australias statistic went down after 1996. Must be coincidence that after gun law reform fatalities with guns went down.
I went on a rant about your "militia against the tyrannical goverment" bull. Its just convinient excuse for cowboys to feel good owning guns.
Australia is a globally poor country (by total in the country. Individually you're doing well) with a small population surrounded by a lot of water.
If you think things that work in a country like Australia with a mere 27 million people can work the same as a place like the USA with a population of 340 million and land bordered with Mexico and Canada, you're thinking like a child.
How about europe? EU alone has 450 million people with higher density living than USA and neighbors like Russia, Turkey and very short boat ride to Afrika and middle east, not to mention recent and not so recent wars that left millions of guns and and even more munitions, and explosives in the cellars and attics of people.
USA has multitudes of more gun related violence than whole EU.
I just cant understand how you guys see the problem and just resist doing anything to it. Like its some great victory for freedom to have children have to do shooter drills in schools. Espesially when there are so easy steps you could do.
We don't get gassed on trains.
To be honest im not sure what you are referencing now.