"it's willful blindness to fail to see any connections between the rising number of guns in America, the decline in gun regulation, and the screaming nightly predictions about the rise of an apocalyptic totalitarian police state. Until we can recognize that these connections exist, there will be more killings in the coming weeks and years."

Perhaps the connection is that governments are by definition institutional systems of repression, and that a glance at the 20th century demonstrates numerous nations becoming totalitarian police states?

Germany was one of the least anti-Semitic nations in Europe before the 1930s. That's why there were so many Jews there. Within a generation, a government can go from being a safe-haven to being genocidal. Why would anyone presume the US is so special as that something similar could never happen here? Like Jello Biafra said, "this could be anywhere / this could be everywhere".

Civilian ownership of combat firearms are necessary for this reason. One never knows what tomorrow might bring, and I'd rather go in a body bag than a cattle car.

"when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Yes, but your conveniently omitting the fact that the Nazis didn't come to power through force of arms, against the wishes of an unarmed and unwilling population. They were democratically elected by the German people, and had made clear their thinking on the Jewish question in election propoganda and in literature, most notably in Mein Kampf. Also, they did not witness a significant decline in general popularity even through the Nuremburg laws of 1935. And, in fact, the German population was quite heavily arms in the years after WW I: The Nazis did not seize power, they remained enormously popular even as they steered Germany towards totalitarianism, and what you believe to be the means to resist (guns) were firmly in the hands of the people, who chose not to use them. So none of your arguments really stand up.

Fair enough Einhard - you're right that the 3rd Reich is a poor comparison.

I still stand by my claim that individual combat arms ownership allows an individual to choose the method by which they'll be dispatched under a totalitarian regime.

You live in the oldest Republic in the world efraker, a nation that has remained a representative democracy for nearly 250 years. Exactly when do your fears of totalitarianism stop being prudent, and instead become irrational and paranoid?