IMO the official salary should be high enough that a non-rich person can live comfortably and have a secure future for themselves and their family so they could potentially hold office without being tempted much to do this sort of thing.
I like this, but it is really stupid
The imperfect answer is to diversify. If you think there is a real risk that you get screwed by the organizations you are trusting your money with, keeping some portion of your wealth in any of those things you are ridiculing is a rational choice to hedge against that risk.
Those are all also risky, but the risks are different as they are (mostly) about your personal security rather than trustworthiness of institutions, meaning you have a lot more protection from being completely wiped out in a single event.
The utility of gun rights as a potential defense against tyranny isn’t proven to be zero by the existence of tyranny, because guns are not a complete solution. I think it’s likely they would be rounding up more people by now, with less expense and difficulty, if Americans didn’t have guns.
Would make sense except they have different clothes and get grey hair