"Neither Normal nor Patriotic"

"Nobody wants to hear the Hitler analogies, but the Brown Shirt paramilitary operation was not entirely dissimilar to this growing band of GOP weirdos. Like other authoritarian revolutionary movements, the Nazi party recruited disaffected citizens, armed them, and then fed a constant diet of hateful conspiracy. Old grievances, arrest records, and other failures were erased by the legitimacy conferred by a gun and a flag. Street violence by the paramilitaries was encouraged. All in the name of instilling fear as part of the pursuit of power."

Ryan Busse at The Bulwark writes about a "transformation of gun culture from an enthusiasm for freedom to a mechanism for instilling fear."