I don't disagree, but those weren't through direct engagement, and afaik no one fired a shot outside of police. I've edited my post to clarify my point that these real threats are people that are smart enough to not directly engage (such as bombers.)

I believe most people (and that includes the mob that attacked) don't want to murder people.

But herein lies the problem: the mob itself is a perfect opportunity to cause real mayhem. Even if the mob is composed of "relatively peaceful" people who aren't trying to kill people, all it takes is one or two bombs to go off at the right time (or one or two actual right-wing terrorists to take advantage of it), to turn a bad situation into a worse one.

Yeah, Timothy McVeigh style attack would be terrible. You know what would be worse? Timothy McVeigh hiding inside of an angry crowd of supporters.

Or hell, TWO Timothy McVeighs. How many angry right-wing extreme nuts are coming to this thing next week?

I really doubt a Timothy McVeigh style attacker would want to kill people that support his cause. A suicide bomber would be more apt to target people he hates than people that support his world view.

I'm not saying a hypothetical terrorist would kill people that support his cause.

I'm saying a hypothetical Timothy McVeigh would kill people (ie: target Mike Pence or Joe Biden), then hide in the mob to prevent police from chasing him.

EDIT: Or any number of "more intelligent" schemes that takes advantage of a rioting mob. I had a bunch of specific examples, but I feel its not moral for me to discuss specifics and help any would-be attackers plan their stuff.

But ultimately, its not very hard to think of ways to take advantage of a mob.

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The main good news is that the National Guard is deploying in major force: riot shields for protests, and even are equipping themselves with lethal weaponry if things get out of hand.