>What is "a credible existential threat to civilization" to you? The recent riots seem to be more than adequately handled through existing law enforcement procedures.
The crowd (who had previously been chanting "hang Mike Pence") came within about 30 seconds of being face to face with Vice President Pence and some large fraction of Congress (source [0]). They came very close to being overrun before the building was evacuated.
We can't know what would have happened. But we know what might have happened. And it very nearly could have happened.
I'm not ready to call that "more than adequately handled".
For context, I don't expect any government to be able to prevent violence and conflict. The best we can hope for is to keep conflict to a manageable level. We've had numerous assassinations in this country in the past, and it held together. The threat of a possible assassination of a right-wing figure absolutely does not rise to the level of "existential threat". If you don't want to call it "adequately handled", fine, I'm not going to argue those semantic distinctions especially as it's not necessary for us to have the same perspectives here. I'm just saying that society is still intact, and would still be intact even if Mike Pence had been attacked.
Other than the personal tragedy to Pence and his family, the worst outcome of an assassination would be people struggling to reconcile their ecstatic glee that Pence had keen killed with their furious rage that right-wingers attacked someone. If anything, division and conflict within the Republican Party only seems to strengthen their opposition. These events lead to less power held by the right, not more. Republicans shooting themselves in the foot is not an "existential threat to civilization".
Law enforcement has been failing to take the threat of right-wing extremism seriously for a long time. I think that's what we should be focused on addressing instead of clamping down on speech. The situation at the capitol should never have been allowed to escalate to the point that it did.
The crowd (who had previously been chanting "hang Mike Pence") came within about 30 seconds of being face to face with Vice President Pence and some large fraction of Congress (source [0]). They came very close to being overrun before the building was evacuated.
We can't know what would have happened. But we know what might have happened. And it very nearly could have happened.
I'm not ready to call that "more than adequately handled".
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-rioters-capito...