When I grew up in NY State, you could shoot guns with your friends from Middle school. You could drink Canadian beer at age 18 while gathered with friends by a lakeside and the cops would pull up and would be civil to you and all your friends, smiling and saying: "Nothing too wild kids, OK?" You could ride bikes without helmets and fish in almost any lake you wanted. You could open a roadside stand as a kid selling anything from garden tomatoes to lemonade and the cops would be your customers. You could walk to school and hitchhike almost anywhere. I could ride a bike to a grass strip airport at 16 years of age, start up my Dad's airplane, and take off into the wild blue while older WW II vets sat in lawn chairs and waved at me.
All of that, just a few decades ago.
All of that, just a few decades ago. In 1920 the Nazi party had only 3000 members. By 1933 they ruled Germany. The Khmer Rouge started in the early 60's and in 1975 took over Cambodia killing about 1/4th of the population. Three observations: Tyranny grows very quickly. And there is never a shortage of people willing and eager to do any atrocity to their fellow citizens in the name of following orders. and three there isn't anything special about the USA that keeps it from happeneing here except perhaps the 2nd amendment. That's why president dog squeeze and his accomplices want to gut it.