I have considered it, and I’ve asked my friend for a copy of the recording. He refuses to send it to me, for the reasons I’ve listed. I’m also concerned that some of other things I’m aware of would destroy other members of our family (Not MAGA, he ends up being the only MAGAt in the family. Oddly as well - his mother ended up living with an immigrant from Mexico.).

I would be suspicious that the video ever existed, if it weren’t for my cousin bragging about defending his house by firing off rounds at a moving car he deemed ‘filled with gang bangers’. Fortunately he didn’t harm anyone, he just put a few holes in his neighbors car and broke their window. No punishment, as you can probably guess.

My family is also entirely convinced that he’s a great man. None of them seem to recognize what he actually is, and this seems pretty consistent across all the people I’ve met who know him (yes he had me convinced as well).

Genuinely - simply talking about it makes me sick. I am conflicted, at my core. I understand that guns simply make the world a more dangerous place, especially assault weapons. I am under no illusion that ‘good guy with gun stop bad guy with gun’. If that were the true, either I or someone else would have shot my cousin by now.

I’m sorry if I was hostile towards you, or really anyone else in this thread. I understand that their responses are filtered through the immediate assumption that I must be a fascist ‘dunking on the libs’, because I’ve chosen a topic that MAGA have ingrained into their ideology. I don’t hate them, or you, for it — believe it or not, I am genuinely afraid for each and every one of you.