Just some innocent freedom-loving Americans out for a stroll (via):
Libertarian activist and radio host Adam Kokesh is hoping to get 1,000 people to march on Washington on July 4 — armed with loaded rifles. The plan, launched with a Facebook group today, is to gather on the Virginia side of the Potomac, where gun laws are lax, and then march across the bridge with loaded rifles slung over their shoulders into the District, where openly carrying weapons is generally prohibited.
“This will be a non-violent event,” the Facebook group warns, “unless the government chooses to make it violent.” […]
The open carry fetishists think they are oh-so-cleverly exploiting liberal panic at seeing a gun whenever they cause a ruckus by walking around displaying their substitute for a girlfriend, but is there anything more legitimate than the concern about the behavior of a gun nut who’s pulling out his penis analogue for public adoration? Anyone with even a tenuous grasp of human society knows that the open presence of a deadly weapon adds uncertainly and risk to any human encounter. Not only that, but these idiots have a track record of shooting themselves and others because they’re almost comically inept at handling their expensive, complex toys. At least truck nutz never shot anyone in the head.
4tehlulz
Man, it’s a good thing they picked a day free of noisemakers; imagine what would happen if some firecrackers went off near them.
lojasmo
What could go wrong?
I hope Obama fills the other side of the bridge with tanks, and flies a line of drones over the gathering.
YellowJournalism
The stupid doesn’t just burn…it shoots!
Snarki, child of Loki
@lojasmo:
“Mine’s bigger than yours, wanna play?”
Todd
This should end well. A slew of pasty-faced, florid, wheezing, heavyset 50 somethings “taking the country back”. If they put the confrontation on pay per view, I’d watch.
I’d pay double if the viewing includes crowd scattering chaos and casualties among the participants.
pseudonymous in nc
Or someone whose skin is not #ffffff shows up to make all those Freedom Patriots twitchy.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
Sort of ironic that I’m reading this news on the anniversary of the Kent State shootings.
Rick Massimo
“My taking money from that liquor store clerk was a non-violent event. It was the government that chose to make it violent.”
Can we call them terrorists NOW, please?
Evinfuilt
Just remember that when something goes wrong with this, it will be a false flag event.
RepubAnon
Sounds like a bank robber: “Give me all the money in the till, and nobody gets hurt…”
Funny how criminals always blame any resulting violence on law enforcement. I hope the police are ready to arrest these fools as soon as they cross into an area with sane laws – the precedent of letting armed mobs march on the capital isn’t a good thing.
Amir Khalid
Um, I don’t think it’s a substitute for a girlfriend.
Older_Wiser
These morons can show their penis extensions all they want, but it won’t make them any bigger.
Ben Franklin
Jeff R.
This isn’t original. The Black Panthers did basically the same thing nearly 50 years ago.
PurpleGirl
I guess the organizers envision a few thousand white, Christian males of a certain age in that march.
Supposing that a contingent of Black Panthers decide to join in the march?
Ben Franklin
@PurpleGirl:
Supposing that a contingent of Black Panthers decide to join in the march?
That’s a terrible idea.
Tripod
Good luck with that. These jackasses bray a lot, but finding anyone willing to get it on with the man? Not so much.
Tokyokie
Even in an open-carry state, if an open-carrier were to put his openly carried firearm 2 inches from the temple of a political opponent and make a threat, it would be considered assault with a deadly weapon, you, know, a crime of violence. That the open carrier didn’t pull the trigger does not mean that the open carrier didn’t commit a crime of violence, the implication that the open carrier was prepared to use violence makes it a crime of violence.
So are unarmed firearms opponents going to confront these idiotic fetishists and tell them they’re full of shit? Hell no, you could get yourself shot that way. Which is the whole point. A whole lot of these idiotic fetishists carrying their high-velocity dream dates is intended solely to intimidate their opponents through the implied use of violence.
In other words, they shouldn’t be arrested once they cross over into D.C. They’re all committing crimes in Virginia as well. (Although waiting until they get to D.C. would involve crossing a state line in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy, so there’s that.)
SparkleFarkle
Isn’t it kind of curious that among the places you can’t bring a loaded weapon are:
– The Capitol Building
– The Republican Party National Convention
– The NRA Convention
NotMax
A phalanx of armed (mostly) men trying to march through the streets of D.C.
Good luck getting a permit for that.
oldster
These jack-asses are also the first to cry “states rights!” whenever the Federal govt does anything to infringe on the right of a Southern State to oppress its people.
But when one state (or district in this case) wants to have gun-laws that are more stringent than another state’s, then they have no regard for home rule whatsoever.
Strange–it’s almost like the way that slave-owners in the South kept crying “states rights!” except when certain Northern states did not want to enforce the fugitive slave laws. Then the states-rights fetishists all of a sudden didn’t care about the rights of states that disagreed with them.
Ultraviolet Thunder
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
Okay, so you’re cool with background checks? On people? Right?
From Both Sides of the Pond
Shades of Mussolini’s March on Rome? – or is that a technical Godwin?
Mark Kind
@SparkleFarkle: I know, right? When I attended the NRA convention in Kansas City 10 or so years ago, the only armed men in attendance were cops and Moses waving around his musket. Sign on the door said absolutely no concealed weapons allowed inside.
MattF
So… they’re planning to march past the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial. What does that word ‘Memorial’ mean, I wonder?
ETA: Oh, yeah, and all those tourists. No prob-lem-o.
brendancalling
@4tehlulz: I would pay good money to see that.
On tv. I wouldn’t want ringside seats.
StringOnAStick
They’ve got 2 whole months to get extremely het up about the whole thing, and as the het factor increases, so does the crazy level. If they actually hold the event, the chance of it not ending well are so, so high. I have no reason to think they won’t; you know, revolution and all that seems popular with these types.
There are opportunities for rat fucking here though. It needs to be made super clear that the NRA needs to become a primary sponsor of this event, because the inevitable blame needs to be on display for every US citizen. Make these fuckers own it, and own the outcome.
celticdragonchick
He sounds like one of the anarchists from the early 20th century, although he also seems to have some mental/personality issues as well.
Villago Delenda Est
These children need to be sent to bed…
Without their heads.
RSA
I wonder if any of the protesters will be tempted to carry along a pistol, without a DC permit? I read that this is a felony.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeff R.:
And the result was the sainted Ronaldus Magnus signing the most restrictive gun control legislation of the late 60’s so fast it would make your head spin.
celticdragonchick
@RSA:
I suspect that Scalia et al would be salivating at the chance to have that law thrown out.
22over7
This isn’t funny. This is a provocation. We’re in the middle of a cold civil war right now, and some idiots want to make it a hot one. You think that if this got out of hand, and there’s no reason to believe it wouldn’t, that the “Washington massacre” (even if the casualties involved hangnails) wouldn’t spur the crazies to start shooting elsewhere?
Ben Franklin
@celticdragonchick:
I suspect that Scalia et al would be salivating at the chance to have that law thrown out.
Isn’t Scalia the locus of said control of gunz< I mean, until he engineers his utopian corporate State?
maya
La-la-la la-la la-la, feeling groovy.
MattF
What could go wrong? There’s the Park Police, the DC (Metropolitan) Police, the Secret Service (the route passes the White House), the FBI (the route passes a couple of blocks from FBI headquarters), the Capitol Police… And it’s the Fourth of July, so there’s a million people on the Mall for the concert and fireworks, so security around the Capitol is already tight– I went to the Fourth of July concert a few years ago and had a little multitool with a one inch knife confiscated. So, good luck kids, and bon voyage, and don’t forget to write from whatever DC jail they throw you into.
IowaOldLady
@22over7: I’m with you. This isn’t funny at all. It’s an attempt at provocation.
Roger Moore
@pseudonymous in nc:
FTFY
Opie_jeanne
@MattF: my husband and I are going to be two of those tourists. On reading this I am reconsidering signing up for that little day trip.
Roger Moore
White robes and hoods optional.
belieber
If an enterprising individual were to set up a penis enlargement information booth along the way they would do well.
gogol's wife
Joe Nocera is very good today. On the 5-year-old killing the 2-year-old, of course, but also a man who went to check on his neighbor’s house while the family was away FOR SEVERAL MONTHS and was shot with the loaded gun they left in the nightstand for the convenience and self-defense of the fugitive murderer who had taken up residence in their house. When Nocera called them to see if they were sorry, they said, “We’re victims too.” Another chapter in responsible gun ownership.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/opinion/2-killings-and-2-guns-unattended.html?ref=opinion
Mnemosyne
@Tokyokie:
I’m only half-joking, because I have actually seen “libertarians” try to argue that if you try and fail to commit a crime, you’re really punishing their thoughts and not an actual crime.
Lurking Canadian
Wait now. An battalion of rapidly mustered riflemen is planning to march into Washington from Virginia?
Should we call it Third Bull Run or Third Manassas?
Keith
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Ben Franklin
@gogol’s wife:
Nocera calls the Cricket a shotgun. It’s a .22. Not that it changes anything, except maybe it reveals a bias which could affect his listening skills when talking to the parent.
DA’s rarely prosecute a parent for negligence when their child dies in an auto collision, but if enough political pressure is applied, anything can happen.
gogol's wife
@Ben Franklin:
He wasn’t talking to the parent of the Kentucky children. He was talking to the wife of the person in Florida who left a loaded gun in his nightstand and then went away for several months and asked his neighbor to check on the house. The neighbor was killed with the loaded gun the responsible gun owner had left for the fugitive killer to use after he broke in. WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE WHAT KIND OF GUN IT WAS?
feebog
Amazing how this whole “we need gunz to protect us from the gumbinit” meme flies in the face of American history. The Whiskey Rebellion, 1791, was put down by George Washington by use of multiple state militias. The right to keep and bear arms was part of the Bill of Rights to keep idiots like these from open rebellion.
Chet
I hope they’re all arrested, or better yet, I hope they’re completely ignored as they mill around on the DC side of the bridge for a while, confused about why they’re not being oppressed, and then just give up and go home.
Even I think it’s an incredibly stupid thing to do to carry loaded firearms around with no other purpose than to flaunt the law.
Roger Moore
@feebog:
Not exactly. The right to keep and bear arms was intended in the context of a well regulated militia, not a bunch of random yahoos. And it was intended to protect liberty by eliminating the need for a substantial standing army, which seems to trouble only the furthest fringes of today’s gun nut culture.
greennotGreen
If this march is a non-violent event, why don’t they march on a church (not necessarily Unitarian) or a school (not necessarily elementary.) Marching with loaded weapons is a show of force, not a display of freedom. Want to display freedom? Have free and open elections.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@oldster: Thank you.
Jesus H. Christ on rye with mustard… these people are Confederates.
EVERY DAMN THING THEY DO makes sense when you accept that they are Confederate freedom fighters fighting to maintain their “way of life.”
(they don’t have to be Southerners to be Confederates, either.)
Fred Fnord
Ohhhh man. I am tempted.
It’d be easy. Set up some hidden speakers, remotely activated. Get myself a blood bag. When the ‘patriot march’ got near them, activate the speakers.
A shot rings out, followed by another. One marcher goes down in a spray of blood, shrieking ‘sniper! sniper!’
Then crawl around a corner in the chaos and confusion, and change clothes.
Sure, I could get killed. But really great, really controvercial performance art has always had a price.
Pity that in reality this won’t be a thousand manly men, just eleven slightly bewildered little boys.
Mike in NC
DC cops should arrest these pinheads, throw their asses in jail overnight, and confiscate their weapons.
Roger Moore
@Mike in NC:
I want any jackass who tries this prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Ideally, they should wind up with felony records so they have a hard time buying guns in the future.
Pug
@Jeff R.: The Panthers entered the state Capitol with weapons. Shortly after that, Governor Reagan signed strict gun control legislation if I remember correctly.
KrisWV
Virginia (& West Virginia) do not share the Potomac River with Maryland and DC — The DC border is the shore of the Virginia side. DC should line some cops on the bridge just where the border is and call their bluff. Invading DC from Virginia under arms was illegal and treason 150 years ago, and it’s not so different now.
eemom
The Black Panther concept is spot on. Organize an event like this with black men, gay married couples and abortion providers brandishing their looooove for the “Second Amendment.”
For serious, that needs to be DONE.
trollhattan
@Ben Franklin:
Bullshit. If somebody is killed in an accident resulting from reckless (or especially drunk) driving you bet your ass they’re prosecuted.
Those parents acted recklessly and perhaps drunkenly. Sometimes, one thing is exactly like another, even if it doesn’t fit your world view.
karen
@SparkleFarkle:
So you can carry it into the White House?
karen
@SparkleFarkle:
And their plans aren’t to become martyrs by provoking the government to react?
Skerry
@Opie_jeanne: No concert this year due to sequester. Also, less park police and maintenance/clean-up folks. Check today’s wash post.
Jennifer
Agree with what others have said: have cops ready and waiting at the DC border, and arrest any and all of them who cross that line with their weapon on display. Of course they’ll spin it as an example of intolerable government oppression, but then they’ll need to explain why they, non-residents of the district, should have the right to flout the laws those who actually live in the district have agreed should prevail in their little patch of real estate.
jon
Sorry to say it, but only 999 are left. Maybe Herman Cain will show up to make up for the absentee?
hitchhiker
Anybody else bothered by the oh-so-clever idea of mimicking the civil rights march across the Edmund Pettus bridge? They think they’re making a statement for freedom; they want to be interrupted and hassled.
I think they ought to be greeted with snorts of laughter and possibly some organized mooning.
Svensker
It’d be nice if a buncha Black Panthers showed up on the Virginia side of the bridge with big honking weapons, too. Maybe with Don’t Tread on Me! signs.
I don’t think they should, because there would prolly be some deaths, but it’s fun to fantasize about the brave Tea Patriot reaction.
trollhattan
@hitchhiker:
Firehoses and German shepherds are my preference. Courage of their convictions, and all that.
Jennifer
@Svensker:
What is the sound of a thousand asses shitting?
Jebediah
@Roger Moore:
Yes. And why should these armed-rebellion felons be allowed to vote, either?
Ben Franklin
@trollhattan:
Nostalgia?
Peanutcat
What gets me is that the people saying that no one should be afraid of armed men running around are the exact same idiots pissing their panties over two New Black Panther members carrying batons . . . . .
jon
@Peanutcat: Don’t forget the aggressive opening of the doors. Those guys were militant in their politeness! Black militant politeness!
Hungry Joe
Allow me to offer some perspective: So far this whole brouhaha consists of 1) a loon on the radio and 2) a Facebook thingy. Five’ll get you ten … make that twenty … hell, call it thirty, that this vapormarch never happens.
Peanutcat
@jon: LOL!
mouse tolliver
Wow. I remember when Adam Kokesh was a left-wing hero because of his anti-war protests. But it turns out he’s a Paultard and a gun fetishist with no common sense whatsoever. It’s sad when the hot ones are crazy.
Citizen_X
Don’t let these fuckers off the bridge. Just have a line of APCs on the far side, blocking the way, and let everyone onto the bridge (thus making them lawbrekers). As soon as the last one is on the bridge, unroll the netting at that end, trapping them all. Then announce, “You are all under arrest. Come forward, lay your weapon down, and we will process you.” Any that don’t want to part with their freedomstick? Let them sit there. In the July heat. Until they surrender.
Don’t give them the glorious martyrdom they crave.
ericblair
@Hungry Joe:
Assuming that some of them actually show up and aren’t circling their F250s around for hours to find free parking, they can get arrested on Arlington Cemetery grounds for packing. Funny, the Army tends to take a dim view of civilian bozos wandering around with guns for no good reason.
trollhattan
@Citizen_X:
Islamic martyr: “Allahhu akbar!”
Confederate martyr: “Hey y’all, watch this!”
trollhattan
@ericblair:
Good point. They’ll probably look at that commie Metro map and realize they can park out in the fringes “fer nuttin'” and then try and ride the train to their “event.” I wonder how that will go?
JWL
Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale was interviewed years ago on NPR, and told the story of how the newly formed Panthers took advantage of California’s lax gun laws in 1966(?) to introduce themselves to the all white Oakland PD. Long story short: they cruised Oakland waiting to spot a white cop interrogating a black man. Didn’t take them long, either. They pulled up in a couple of cars, and piled out with unloaded guns in their hands (I think they were unloaded, anyway, per the current law). Naturally enough, the cop was a bit flustered. Didn’t take Sacramento lawmakers long to change gun toting laws, although I can’t recall the specifics.
If today’s black gun nuts have a sense of humor, they will rally to Kokesh. The sight of 20,000 black folks crossing a bridge into D.C. carrying weaponry would not only be great theatre, but might also rattle the cages of our otherwise complacent congress.
Villago Delenda Est
@ericblair:
The Army takes a dim view of their own soldiers wandering around with firearms for no good reason.
Firearms control on a military base is anal retentive to a fault.
Maude
It’s on FB. Like the gubmint isn’t going to know if this is going to happen. What makes them think they’ll get anywhere?
The second thing is that this is big talk. How many would do this?
It’s more anarchy than anything else.
Calouste
@Jeff R.: When the Black Panthers did it, it was legal. Well, at least legal for white people.
Cain
@JWL:
1 million armed men march
followed by 2 million armed black men march
that should really be interesting. Who do you think is going to fire at who?
Mnemosyne
@Hungry Joe:
Yep. Everyone else is going to be too busy, or too tired, or too old, and this guy is going to end up with maybe a couple of his buddies tagging along pretending it’s a “march” and not a gathering of fools.
Dave
This is a terrible thing to say, but I wish someone would just launch some fireworks into that crowd of yahoos and watch to see what happens.
You want gun control laws? There it is. 50-100 old white crackers shitting their pants and firing wildly and blindly at everything they see because they heard some loud noises.
Polly
At no point, that I have ever heard, has anyone arguing for their gun rights ever contextualized those rights against the other rights or limits they inevitably experience as a citizen in a state, or taken a moment to examine the real set of groups, institutions, and just general social realities that empower or inhibit their course through existence. If any of them ever did this, they might find a compromise with every party from their cousin to the the Wilson administration, and yet, somehow, their lives turn on these firearms.
Ruckus
@Jennifer:
LOLZ
iriedc
Meh. The 10 different police/security agencies barely even allows tourists and residents to travel anywhere downtown with so much as a water bottle on July 4th. Hope they try to metro over from the Pentagon station…
fuckwit
@Svensker: “Do you mind if we dance with your dates?”
fuckwit
@Hungry Joe: Remember that preacher that made a big Facebook fuss over burning the Koran on the 9/11 anniversary? I’m pretty sure that the pathetic loser ended up with him and his wife and nobody else, in a municipal park, using a public barbecue stand to do his Koran-burning.
In other words, what if they gave a douchebag-fest and nobody came?
bcinaz
The mental health loophole you could march the NRA through.
joe gamba
@Rick Massimo:
I wholeheartedly agree…please!…..please!!…..can we now call them what they are: Terrorists. We don’t need their permission or their agreement to call them Terrorists. And then, they should legally be treated as…(wait for it…)
Terrorists.
Tonal Crow
Time to break out the “zero tolerance for lawbreaking” policing strategy, which Republicans profess to love in every other context. The panicked screeches for the immediate provision of (otherwise-hated) defense lawyers by (otherwise-hated) government will begin in 5…4…3….
Lurking Canadian
Gitmo. No trials. Too dangerous to release.
See how they like it.
e.a.f.
1000 people walking as a group, with loaded guns/rifles???? What part of crazy don’t these people get. It would not be unreasonable to conclude these people are terrorists. They will be envoking fear and terror in the people in the areas which they pass through.
This is not what we expect in a civilized country. YOu might see this in Syria, Somolia, you know some third world country which has a dictatorship, or Mexico if the area is controlled by drug lords. I would suggest if this becomes an activity permitted in the U.S.A. on a regular basis, many won’t be visiting or consider the U.S.A. one of the “civilized” countries. This isn’t an amendment right issue. What these people are suggesting is a public safety issue. Thank god, only in America.
Snarki, child of Loki
Regarding the suggestion of setting off firecrackers during the “March of the Armed Morons”, use some care, or the result might not be very good.
Tear-gas the fucktards FIRST, and when they’re dealing with the effects THEN set off the firecrackers.
Round up and arrest the survivors.
Patricia Kayden
Why do they think that D.C. wouldn’t exercise its right to arrest people breaking its laws? Arrest their behinds when they cross over into D.C. with their guns “slung over their shoulders”.
Recall
@Villago Delenda Est:
FTFY
Carl Nyberg
Who is the audience for this kind of event?
I get how this allows Kokesh–who is a bit of a pussy if you stand up to him–to promote himself.
But what does this event intend to accomplish in political terms?
This is not something to persuade swing voters. This is something to move the Overton Window for the gun nuts.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Supposing that a contingent of Black Panthers decide to join in the march?
There would be shooting.
And even if it was conclusively shown that the white rednecks started it (what with video, and eyewitnesses, and the Black Panthers deliberately being unloaded and all), it would still be the blacks’ fault. They’re just so damned violent, y’see…
Thomas Masterson
Since nobody else said this, should it be:
“Just some innocent freedom-loving Americans out for a troll“?
just sayin’