In all honesty, I really wouldn't bring a gun to a protest. Like, what are you going to do, shoot a cop in self defense? Realistically the answer to that question is no.

I understand it's your right to do and they should respect that, but open carry and armed police are two stupid concepts that mix together very badly.

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 44 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Don't do it alone, but if done in an organized way it's a real deterrent to the cops violently escalating against the protest

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 18 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah the point is that they wouldn't even be pepper spraying a random woman for this one dude to intervene and get shot if there were 10 people from an org with rifles at the event. If one dude from the org got in an altercation while being innocent the whole org is likely to light em up, they simply wouldn't take actions that has potential to cause a clash with the org.

[–] invalidusernamelol@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Turns out, even if you have guns, other people with guns are scary. Especially when you have the physical option to just leave

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 13 points 4 days ago

While I wouldn't write off shooting criminal cops in self-defense should the need arise, the main goal of having a gun is that the cops don't want you to discharge it in the first place and therefore wouldn't feel entitled to completely arbitrary violence against you. Like the others said, this makes much more sense when you're part of an armed group with at least some coordination rather than just some asshole.

[–] DornerStan@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 days ago

There's precedent for (non-state sanctioned) fash shooting up protesters and getting put down by an armed comrade.

But it's definitely not a simple choice. There's a really hard limit to the utility of individual decisions and actions.