There have been many thousands of protests across the US this year. The number of major protests that involved even remote danger to participants has been incredibly tiny.
Indeed, in the more extreme situations — such as the military occupation of a small area in Southern California or Nazi demonstrations a few years back — a few outlier protestors (sometimes members of outlier radical groups and sometime agitators from the other side who try hard to provoke something) can engage in radical and potentially illegal activity.
If you want to wade into _that_ stuff, don't be naive.
But the vast number of protests taking place his year have been entirely peaceful — a few people on a local street corner holding signs, friendly people on organized marches with literally no violence, people linking arms.
Let's not confuse the normal expressions of first amendment rights (more like 99.99%) activities with the tiny number of outliers. You are about as likely to encounter that stuff as you are to get injured driving to the event.
It has been years, but I have been around long enough to experience the .01% where things get dangerous. In that case, the danger came from police officers who drove into a crowd at high speed and from one agitator (who was likely and unsuccessfully trying to rile up a peaceful crowd) who threw something. I saw what was happening and left.
There have been many thousands of protests across the US this year. The number of major protests that involved even remote danger to participants has been incredibly tiny.
Indeed, in the more extreme situations — such as the military occupation of a small area in Southern California or Nazi demonstrations a few years back — a few outlier protestors (sometimes members of radical and sometime agitators from the other side who try hard to provoke something) can engage in radical and potentially illegal activity.
If you want to wade into _that_ stuff, don't be naive.
But the vast number of protests taking place his year have been entirely peaceful — a few people on a local street corner holding signs, friendly people on organized marches with literally no violence, people linking arms.
Let's not confuse the normal expressions of first amendment rights (more like 99.99%) activities with the tiny number of outliers. You are about as likely to encounter that stuff as you are to get injured driving to the event.
It has been years, but I have been around long enough to experience the .01% where things get dangerous. In that case, the danger came from police officers who drove into a crowd at high speed and from one agitator (who was likely and unsuccessfully trying to rile up a peaceful crowd) who threw something. I saw what was happening and left.
Sep 05, 2025 at 12:42 PM
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