" Should I be worried about what happens to me when I return? Why is the FBI trying to make a developer of an open source encryption tool feel unwelcome in their country of origin? Should I try to get a different citizenship? Is my family safe in the US? Should I worry about the FBI raiding my parents’ house and shooting our family dog? Should I worry about FBI agents stalking and harrassing my mother?"
So, exactly like Soviet Union then? I guess you can't learn anything from history if you haven't actually lived through it.
The moment that a weapon crosses the threshold of a building that was, moments before, weapon free, the odds of a pet dog, or a person, getting shot go from 0 to non-zero.
Personally, cops make me nervous. Whenever I'm on the subway and a pair of cops end up in the same car I'm in, my odds of catching a stray bullet go up. Before the cops got on the train there were (very likely) 0 guns in the car with me, after they got on, there are (at least) 2.
You can't get shot if there aren't any guns within range. Call it irrational, but the only place where I can be reasonably comfortable with guns is at a well managed shooting range.
Sure, I agree, I think gun ownership is weird and horrible, and I wish the US would dis-arm. You'd see a dramatic drop in completed suicide for one thing.
But even in the incredibly violent US, with poorly trained gun happy police, only 5,500 dogs are killed each year. That's way too many, but parent said "you should be afraid of this" - no, you really shouldn't. If you own a dog you should be far more worried about the risk of the dog being run over; or of the dog being over-fed (half of American dogs are overweight or obese) or of all the other far more common stuff that kills dogs.
(All these numbers are estimates, so who knows how good they are).
So, exactly like Soviet Union then? I guess you can't learn anything from history if you haven't actually lived through it.