TBH, I’m not sure I would have recognized that as a Nazi symbol prior to a group of people I knew arguing about Death In June. Some were arguing that the band was fine, some were arguing that the band was pro-fash. The second group was using the band’s iconography–including a totenkopf–as part of their evidence. The first group was claiming that it was satirical. (FWIW, Death In June had a long history of collaboration with Boyd Rice, who is an out-and-proud fascist, which is pretty strong evidence all on its own.) That was around 2010 or so.

If I hadn’t been part of that, I can’t say when it would have broken my threshold of consciousness.

I’ve definitely had better luck with them, although it depends on how windy and rainy it is. If it was so bad that a cigarette was going to be soaked before I got it lit, then nothing was going to work. Plus, you also have cold temperature performance; liquid fuels (for lighters) will continue to work in exceptionally cold weather, while butane lighters tend to not.

You know that he covered up the tattoo within a day of revealing it, right? And that he was the one that revealed it first? The ‘scoop’ from large news outlets came after he spoke about it–and released videos and photos–on Pod Save America.

So he’s not a dude with a Nazi tattoo. He’s a dude that had a tattoo that he may or may not have known was a Nazi tattoo at some time in the past.

I would very strongly suggest that you reconsider your stance on guns. You may not want to hurt other people to protect yourself, but there are surely other people in your community that need someone to stand with and for them. I think we all hope that the day never comes that it’s necessary, but I think that the quote I heard was, “si vis pacem, para bellum.”

I know a few people in the north Georgia area that are quite welcoming to new people. I can suggest at least one trainer out in Rome. There are a few gun stores that don’t seem to be full of Trump shit. Unfortunately, I didn’t ever get south of Atlanta, so if you’re in e.g. Macon or Savannah, I don’t know anyone directly.

BTW - I’ve heard him speak in person. I’ve seen how Platner dealt with MAGA hecklers. I think that his solutions are simplistic, because the system is wildly complex, but I think he’s got the right ideas. If he’s undercover as a Nazi, he sure as shit as me fooled.

The tattoo dates to roughly 2009, IIRC. The Daily Wire and a few other far-right shitrags have published hysterical pieces about him–via his Reddit account–talking about training the Maine chapter of the Socialist Rifle Club in firearms use and safety in 2020. Or, as they said, “antifa”. And the SRA IS notably anti-fascist in their ideology (I’m sure that some percentage of them are tankies, but the org as a whole doesn’t seem to be authoritarian), and very pro-LGBTQ+. The turned up photos of one of the events that these publications are saying he’s in. (I can’t tell, TBH; the photos aren’t that good. He could be, but I can’t say for certain.)

So the problem you run headlong into here is, if he secretly has/had Nazi beliefs at one time, sufficient to get a tattoo signifying such, why would be be training SRA members?

In addition to that, everything he was posting on Reddit appears to say he’s not a Nazi. Some of the stuff is questionable (slurs, for instance, although those are probably still commonly used in the military), but most people that are fascists don’t hide that shit when they’re posting “anonymously”. And the account was deleted in 2021, four years before he declared for a Senate run. If he was planning a con, that’s a looooooooong time to be building an anti-fascist online persona before it gets any kind of payoff.