[Frondo]

Yeah, definitely. You're right, it's not nuts to entertain the thought experiment, "what would be too far for a government?" Genocide, sure, I like to think I'd stand up against that, and defend the people who were the target.

But yeah, either putting nutty things on that list (like firearms registration, as you said), or looking at the state of the country and thinking we're anywhere near the need to overthrow a government, that's what's concerning.

There's a therapy term, catastrophizing, which I think fits here. It's where you take some situation, imagine the worst thing that could happen from it, and assume that is already happening or is about to happen. Like firearms registration leading to, what? FEMA death camps? Enslavement by the Bilderberg group?

And that's the pattern you see in all these overthrow-the-gubmint kind of conversations: X (harmless) leads to Y (not likely) leads to Z (increasingly unlikely) leads to W (totally implausible) and that's why we need to start killing our fellow citizens at X.

It's scary, but at the same time not too scary, since a lot of this stuff just falls under the umbrella of internet-tough-guy talk.