Some were complaining that there’s too much Jesus in this blog, so I’ll turn to the other component of American politics: guns.
It’s just a coincidence that the Second Amendment March on DC happens on April 19, the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombings. Which, coincidentally, commemorated the end of the Branch Davidian siege.
It’s also pure chance that 3 of the 7 rules of the “Code of Conduct” posted on the event’s site are about unlawful possession of firearms.
(via Sully)
El Cid
Maybe we should have a march on Washington DC of black & liberal gun owners. Then maybe the ‘2nd Amendment’ / Reaganite activists would suddenly remember how they crapped their pants when Black Panthers began porting rifles in public and they quickly passed California gun laws.
Michael
“Nobody could have predicted…..”
arguingwithsignposts
“Some were complaining that there’s too much Jesus in this blog” = “some people say…” Jesus in the hizzouse!
Seriously, these people need a better calendaring program. Like Beck scheduling his thing on the anniversary of MLK’s “I have a dream” speech. There are some things we just shouldn’t do.
Pigs & Spiders
@arguingwithsignposts: To be fair, it’s a minefield out there. Show me a day on the calendar and I’ll show you a day something bad/politically significant happened.
beltane
@El Cid: If the immigration rallies featured gun wielding Mexican militias, the wingnuts might have a “come to Jesus” moment. (I am determined to insert Jesus into this thread)
Zifnab
Don’t forget Columbine and Hitler’s Birthday.
Can we just call it “Crazy Fascist Protest-mas” to make it easier on everybody?
Ash Can
What could possibly go wrong?
JD Rhoades
@El Cid:
I am totally down with this idea.
Jim
It’s all about Lexington and Concord.
Except that back then the government was marching on the people to take away guns, now the citizens are marching on the government to protest having recently won more 2nd amendment rights. Or something like that.
Bob In Pacifica
April 20th is Hitler’s birthday, so wackadoodles of that stripe tend to get all hot and bothered around then, too.
ricky
@El Cid:
How about August 22nd?
LGRooney
Shouldn’t they march on the Pentagon? I mean, the Second Amendment seems to indicate that the right to carry shall not be infringed so that the citizens can defend this country because there was so much antipathy towards a standing military but there was recognition that the people did need to be able to defend the State. So, then, don’t we have an either/or situation? Either we have the military or we have the right to bear arms (to defend the country). Choose. Of course, a dedicated officer corps was needed to command the militias in the face of a military threat and, therefore, some limited DoD would be needed, e.g., to train officers (NCOs and commissioned – hence the service academies) and perhaps to organize the militias.
Punchy
I didn’t think neegrowz were allowed to carry gunz. The Consty doesn’t specifically address this, so Scalia tells me The Coloredz must lack this right.
Originalist, bitches.
Dork
4/20 is for wackadoodles? I thought it was for the potheads.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
My Hippie Militia opposes bong control.
J.W. Hamner
I guess it’s a good day to be a pothead wackadoodle. Though one must wonder how effective a neo-Nazi you can be with a marijuana habit.
SpotWeld
@LGRooney: Dude, the pentagon has guns… marching on them would disprove thier point.
Punchy
Can we get a Atum Smasher Kolider thread puleeze, for all us fisicks dorkx?
Kbaithx
danimal
Holy Jesus, April 19 is shaping up to be a horrible day. What could go wrong, with tea partiers armed and en masse, freshly pissed off about paying taxes and being forced to provide poor people health care?
peach flavored shampoo
@Punchy: From your link:
Wow, the Code Browns never end for some people, do they? Do these people just carry 4 pairs of underwear around with them at all times?
burnspbesq
Guns and Jesus come together, dontcha know. The company that makes the scopes used by our military secretly put scripture references on them, with predictable damage to our troops’ relationships with the locals in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/military-year-fix-jesus-rifles/story?id=10106096&cid=ESPNheadline
I am not an expert in government contracts law, but it seems to me that this has to be a material breach of the contract for the production of these scopes. The contractor should be made to either give back all the money it has gotten or replace the defective scopes with new ones that conform to the contract specifications, at no additional cost.
And the Pentagon folks who failed to perform appropriate quality control inspections to detect these flaws as the scopes were being delivered should be fired.
This just really annoys me.
jurassicpork
Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Right, or how the Bush years were but a mere prologue of things to come.
Violet
If you just add in Gold, you’ll have all Three G’s: God, Guns, Gold. Wingnut paradise.
demo woman
@burnspbesq: Military: It Could Take A Year To Fix ‘Jesus Rifles’
Wouldn’t take Jesus that long.
Cacti
But Koresh the child rapist said he was the Messiah returned, did he not?
cleek
can’t be April 14th: that’s the day Lincoln was killed, the day the Titanic sunk and the day of the biggest storm of the Dust Bowl.
one can learn a lot from Gillian Welch.
Maude
@demo woman:
WIN
El Cid
Okay, taking suggestions: The Gun Owners For Diversity March On Washington, sponsored by ACORN* & MALDEF.
*Yes, yes, I know about ACORN’s fraud-caused dissolution, but this could be a reunion / honoring tour.
soonergrunt
@burnspbesq: I had one of those scopes on my rifle in Afghanistan. I certainly had no idea that stuff was a biblical reference. I’ll bet most guys didn’t. If it was there to get people to convert, or rededicate, or whatever, it was a spectacular failure.
It’s unlikely that it increased costs of the devices at all, however, and it’s external to the function of the device, so it is extremely unlikely that anything will come of this except that the bible reference will be ground off. It’s a non-performing variance from the specifications (in english, that shit ain’t part of the design requested by the government, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the performance of the device).
dmsilev
@peach flavored shampoo: People who are worried about that should visit this aptly-named site.
-dms
Little Dreamer
I think the militia-patriot types actually believe that day was a big win for them. Go figure!
soonergrunt
@Little Dreamer: These are the same types who said after 9/11 that they wished they had that kind of fanatic following so that they could pull off something as spectacular.
KDP
OT, but in the vein of WWJD, the father of the Iraq soldier whose funeral was picketed by the anti-gay protesters of the Westboro Baptist Church won his civil rights case, but then had the case tossed out of federal court on appeal. He has also been ordered to by the church’s legal fees. Crooks & Liars has provided a link to help him raise the funds for the additional legal fees to file the required brief with the Supreme Court, which has agreed “to consider whether the protesters’ provocative messages, which include phrases like “Thank God for dead soldiers,” are protected by the First Amendment.”
David
Rumproast has a Zapruder-like, slow motion video of the vicious attack on the Tea Party bus at the anti-Harry Reid festival known as Showdown in Searchlight:
http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/breitbart_beat-down_the_sorrow_and_the_pity/
Little Dreamer
@KDP:
What kind of a judge decides that bullshit? Must be an activist judge of the right-wing variety.
kindness
Who saw Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show last night?
The segment I’m referring to is where John Oliver was pro Tea Party & Wyatt Cenec was pro liberals. It was funny in that mentioning the least little thing would send John Oliver over the edge proclaiming that bringing up any subject forced ‘his people’ to revolution. Wyatt was quiet & calm and when finally asked for the liberal perspective he said “Bring it on. You all forget but we have guns too.”
I do have liberal friends who don’t think anyone should own guns, but I also have liberal friends who do own guns. My conservative (especially the Sarah Palin out there ones) friends all think liberals don’t support guns at all. The biggest difference that I’ve seen between the liberals & the conservative gun owners is that conservatives crave using the gun to dominate someone else or to be manly with their weapon where as liberals like shooting targets or cans and not so much living things. It isn’t an ego thing for liberals and it’s a HUGE ego thing for conservatives. (generalizations galore here people, I know they aren’t completely true, just generalizations).
Adam Collyer
So, I’m supposed to be in DC on April 18th and 19th. A class of mine is going to see Supreme Court argument on the morning of the 19th, then meet with Justice Breyer.
I’m seriously considering not going, based on what else is happening in that city that day. It’s kind of frightening.
Paul in KY
J.W. Hamner, who wondered: ‘Though one must wonder how effective a neo-Nazi you can be with a marijuana habit.’
The pot helps them get down some of the more exotic German meats/sausages.
Adam Collyer
@Punchy:
No, no, no, silly liberal commentator. You’re thinking of textualism! As an Originalist, Scalia gets to go outside the words, find people who says things he likes, then make up what he knows is the original meaning of the founding documents.
But only that crazy liberal bloc (captained by John Paul Stevens, appointed by known liberal Gerald Ford) could possibly have “activist judge” tendencies…
edmund dantes
@Little Dreamer: Unfortunately one that actually respects the rule of law.
It’s despicable, unconscionable, and morally wrong what the Westboro guys do, but it’s hard to see how it isn’t Constitutionally protected.
I’d have to see more of the actual court case to see how they lost on the lower court level to see why it got overturned, but my guess is that the jury verdict was based on raw emotion and not really based in any law.
Westboro has every right to defend itself and appeal to a higher level, and they have every right to ask for court fees.
It sucks having to defend assholes like this, and I’ll get flamed for saying it, but I really don’t see a compelling case on Constitutional grounds why the Westboro guys should have ever lost the lower court case.
The problem is that because of assholes like this and people going “it’s okay to curtail that groups speech” that we end up with all these stupid free speech zones, protest zones, etc.
So yes it sucks for this soldier’s family, but someone should have advised them against going the lawsuit route on such shaky grounds when this was an almost guaranteed outcome on appeal.
Remember November
4/1 would have been a better day, also 4-19 Hitler’s Birthday ( or was it the 17th?)
Zifnab
@Punchy: Seconded.
Peter J
This isn’t about Jesus. It’s about Crist.
Bud Day endorsing Crist:
(via David Weigel)
Swell.
Zifnab
@Adam Collyer: So far there have been zero casualties. Hell, I don’t think I’ve even heard about a gun being discharged.
And given that they’re going to be marching around the Capital while you’re at the courthouse, you probably won’t see more than stragglers buying hot dogs and complaining about the mass transit.
Nylund
“We’re marching on this anniversary of the Columbine shootings to remind Americans everywhere that its their constitutional right for their children to be shot to death by other children while at school.”
Ash
Guns and Jesus pretty much go hand in hand. I understand neither.
Ash Can
@edmund dantes: Heck, if media mouths have the constitutional right to incite people to murder abortion doctors, there’s no way Westboro Baptist Church is guilty of anything.
Redshirt
I know this is negative, but I hope there’s violence, from the these “patriots” themselves.
It seems the only way we’re going to get the MSM to treat these people as the dangerous radicals they are is by visual evidence – let’s show Middle America a bunch of fat, angry white people railing against America and celebrating blowing up Federal Buildings.
Is there no point at which the dissonance will be too much? I suspect we’re soon to find out.
Martin
@Pigs & Spiders: That’s bullshit. The OK City event happened *because* it was the anniversary of Waco. We know this – those dates are not coincidental, and having armed protests on that day will not be coincidental.
Tip for you – don’t hold an airshow on 9/11. It’ll be received poorly, coincidental or not.
Erik Vanderhoff
My favorite part is how the march is actually a “let’s hang out at Huntington Park, Virginia,” since that’s the closest they can get to D.C. and still be allowed to open-carry. Say what you will about us leftists, we’re willing to get our asses arrested for our beliefs.
Michael
Also no coincidence to the Code? The event’s Platinum Sponsor is the pro-concealed weapons group.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@beltane:
Fixt, for phonetic spelling.
celticdragonchick
@El Cid:
I’d sign up for that.
You are also on the money concerning the actual racism that went into California’s gun control laws, along with some similar ones in the South that were aimed at ‘uppity black men’ who were apt to shoot at klansmen in their yards at night.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Erik Vanderhoff:
Seems about right. That’s about as close as their last really big protest rally got to approaching DC, circa 1861-1865.
celticdragonchick
@edmund dantes:
Probably because some judges feel that most funerals are not public events, and thusly are not proper venues for political expression aimed at insulting and denigrating the mourners and the deceased.
I tend to agree. You have no right to “free speech” (as in without consequences) in many private forums, nor can you force me to participate in your speech by yelling into megaphones and protesting 6 inches off my property.
Uloborus
@edmund dantes:
I completely agree. If you’re just running your mouth off and being an asshole, your right to do that is and should be Constitutionally protected, even if I hate what you’re saying.
DPirate
@Bob In Pacifica: Do the germans even celebrate birthdays? I thought they were into Name Days.
EdTheRed
Oh please oh please oh please oh please come into DC and try that Open Carry shit. Oh please oh please oh please! MPD will go Pershing Park on your shit so fast, you won’t know what hit you…unless the Capitol Police, the Park Police, or the Uniformed Secret Service get to you first.
Then you can have fun explaining your wingnut self to a federal jury in DC, and having served on one for a gun possession charge, I can assure you, we don’t play around any more than the cops here do. We’re also more than a little bitter about the whole Taxation Without Representation thing, which in our case is a reality, not some wingnut fantasy. So, you know, your whining will fall on very deaf ears.
To sum up: Don’t listen to your organizers. Follow your inner Ted Nugent, and come to DC packing heat like you would back in Pennsyltucky or Florabama or wherever it is you collect your social security checks.
jomo
So it starts out a genuine revolutionary war commemoration remembering Lexington and Concord – then you add Waco to the mix which is probably a coincidence. But then one after the gun nuts do crazy stuff in commemoration of these solemn so that it becomes the anniversary of OK City and the anniversary of Columbine (and let’s not forget Hitler’s Birth). In light of these things a normal person may at some point say it is a little unseemly and doesn’t put me in a good light to be demonstrating on the anniversary of those things. But these guys double down on the crazy. It’s a high holy day for them.
burnspbesq
@soonergrunt:
I accept without reservation your assertion that the Scripture references didn’t adversely affect the performance of the scope.
But there’s a bigger issue, isn’t there? If (as has apparently been documented) the local population doesn’t want to interact with American troops because they carry so-called “Jesus rifles,” isn’t that adversely affecting the success of the mission?
Little Dreamer
@edmund dantes:
You honestly think crashing a funeral to conduct a protest should be constitutionally protected? The family of the deceased only get one chance to say goodbye. Sorry, I think this is out of bounds.
There are plenty of places to conduct protests, at a dead person’s funeral shouldn’t be one of them.
Little Dreamer
@EdTheRed:
Good point!