So I know that gun control is a contentious issue here. I get it, I really do. Honestly I wish this nation would have much stricter gun laws nationwide than it does. I live in Indiana, a cesspool of gun nuts, KKK members, xenophobes, racists, and just generalized awfulness. I hunt deer (not for trophies, I wouldn't want a deer head on my wall, but venison chili is great, as is deer jerky). But, owning guns means I also frequent the same spaces as other gun owners. And let me tell you, things have changed. The gun nut community has always had a paranoid streak. Even as someone who owns a gun you're looked at with hostility if you are known to be anything but a tea party "patriot" and if you ever suggest that maybe gun laws are a bit lax in your state you'll get to watch someone go into apoplexy.
Even if the people your talking to all have a story about someone who clearly shouldn't be owning or carrying a gun, as soon as you mention any sort of regulation they tend to go on a spittle flecked rant about "slippery slopes" "from my cold dead hands" etc. This is something I'm used to.
This paranoia has given way to something else since the election. In the Obama years the conversations were always about what you would do "when the shit hits the fan". Lots of fan fiction on survivalist websites about gunning down evil "gubmint agents" who were "coming for your guns". Online, these fantasies are disguised as "survival scenarios" and are written about on damn near every gun site.
But now the stuff being written and talked about is different, now it's a barely disguised glee at the prospect of mowing down "shitlibs" (as well as the evil urban hordes that will be swarming out of the cities to rape and pillage once their food stamps and welfare are cut off). Again, these things are written as "survival scenarios" which is just a polite way of saying it's what the author likes to fantasize about while he *ahem* types the story one handed.
These authors have a large audience, and they are all running with the same theme. They're working on convincing the audience that "leftists" are all black bloc anarchists, ready to bring out the molotovs, bricks and bombs. That "globalist billionaires" (read:Jews) like George Soros are building private armies to collapse the economy (in order to somehow profit). And while we are watching the collapse of our institutions with shock, they are watching it with undisguised glee.
So I finally broke down and got a personal protection lisence (i.e. concealed carry permit). Despite having grown up with firearms i didn't really feel the need to have a carry license till now. I've also been encouraging my left leaning friends to follow in my example. Some of them have accused me of living in fear and/or being "just as paranoid about the right as they are about us. "
Here's the thing, our media and leaders have not, even during the darkest days of the Bush admin, encouraged violence towards our political opponents, nor have they made excuses for the few liberals who have gone out and committed acts of violence. On the other side the right has been hyping their side up to see liberals, progressives, really anyone to the left of Reagan as traitors who are attempting to destroy everything they hold dear. And any more, it's not just the unbalanced few crazies who are making plans to "take out" these enemies.
When the Trump presidency comes crashing down, these folks are going to be enraged, it will be seen as a liberal conspiracy to steal the presidency (regardless of if Paul Ryan or Pence takes over) and they will lash out. We already see what the empowerment of these folks has led to, the victims of that gunman in Kansas (two Indian men he thought were Muslim) would quite possibly be alive today had Trump not normalized the hatred we're seeing.
I know most folks on here aren't going to go out and sign up for a pistol safety course, and I'm not telling you that's what you need to do. What I will say is that you need to take as many steps towards protecting yourself as you are comfortable with. Get some pepper spray, a collapsible baton, something. If you're going to a protest make sure not to have anything that can give away your identity to anyone who may be photographing or videoing you. And look up who is in your area who might be a threat, for myself I know there's over a dozen KKK members in the small town I live in, as well as a number of folks (some of them on the police force)who might not be officially part of that group, but are certainly sympathetic and at the very least, willing to look the other way while they harass and intimidate, and maybe more than that.