Call your Congress critters and let them know how you feel. This is just institutional creep that, like an invasive plant, needs to be pruned back from time to time.
If topics like this make you too emotional to participate, you can just ignore it. Nobody is forcing you to respond to things that make you upset.
Regardless, I already flag articles like this to hide them from my front page. I sometimes comment because I’d prefer a world where I didn’t have to do that.
Like I said, there are already plenty of sources for this kind of content. We don’t really need HN to be yet another Reddit or Bluesky.
This is governmental overreach and should concern everybody regardless of political affiliation.
I'm cynical enough that I think this is fairly clear evidence that some political affiliations are less sincere than others, but very few people will acknowledge this.
I can guarantee that the people who argue that the second amendment is more important than keeping people from mass-murdering school children would happily cheer on the government if they started confiscating guns from "the enemy".
I've had extremely respectful dialog with others who don't embrace my values and I find their reasoning to be specious at best.
I have respect for old school conservatism that advocates for limited government but contemporary conservatives no longer seem to care about that (except if it's programs they don't like).
My initial comment still stands: the governmental action of the OP is intended purely to be oppressive and it will not be wielded with any sense of propriety.
I abhor partisan politics and am more than happy to point out flaws on the Left but we've gone through the looking glass on the Right. It's literally a cult of personality and I take no pleasure in saying that.
While a two party system is not a good thing (George Washington warned us about political parties), having proper debate over policies and ideas is a good thing to have and we no longer have that. I've followed American politics for half a century and can unequivocally state that the situation we have here is not normal.
Which sections in particular should I go re-read?