http://video-embed.mlive.com/services/player/bcpid2436806291001?bctid=3621780684001&bckey=AQ~~,AAAAQBxUr7k~,PsMaWpexSO0gBGbwp0HC65I60alsnUQ1
Grumble, piss moan. Here:
On a bright day in early May, Joseph Houseman, 63, was out enjoying his Second Amendment rights in Kalamazoo, Mich. As traffic went by on East Cork Street, Houseman stood at the roadside, a rifle resting on his shoulder. Witnesses called the police.
“Yes, I’d like to report something,” one man told a 911 dispatcher that day, May 4, according to audio obtained by MLive.com. “There’s an elderly man walking down the street with, it looks like to be an assault rifle. I don’t know if its a bb gun, a pellet gun, or whatnot. But, I mean, he’s older, he’s an elderly man, and I just want to be sure everything is going to be alright.”
The first calls to law enforcement came in around 4 p.m. By 4:22 p.m., 12 officers were on the scene, traffic on the street was shut down, and negotiations were turned over to Sgt. Andres Wells, a trained SWAT negotiator, according to MLive.com. The website, which obtained police reports and recordings of the ensuing 40-minute standoff, on Monday published a video portraying part of the at times tense, at times absurd events. In it, Houseman can be seen pointing and shouting at officers — and at one point he grabs his genitals and gestures in the officers’ direction.
“Folks, I need you all to go inside,” an officer can be heard telling onlookers at one point. “If that gun is live and he starts firing, everyone is at risk.”
cleek
“PsMaWpexSO0gBGbwp0HC65I60alsnUQ1” ?
what a mouth on that guy!
Poopyman
Anyone want to summarize for those of us w/o video capabilities @ work?
The Dangerman
Tinky Winky says* check your linky.
*well, he (she? it?) would if Tinky Winky talked
rikyrah
Michelle Obama Calls Out House Republicans For Trying to Roll Back School Lunch Standards
By: Jason Easley
Monday, June, 16th, 2014, 2:19 pm
House Republicans are due to vote this week on an agriculture spending bill that includes a provision rolling back the nutritional requirements in school lunches, but First Lady Michelle Obama is already calling out the GOP.
…………..
Republicans are using the rising cost of fruits and vegetables as their reason to roll back the 2010 school lunch nutritional requirement that more fruits and vegetables be offered at meal time. The School Nutrition Association, which gets nearly two thirds of its funding from frozen and processed food companies, is working with House Republicans to roll back the standards.
This fight has nothing to do with the health and wellness of students. It is all about processed food giants like ConAgra Foods, Tyson Foods and Domino’s Pizza trying to push healthy food options out of the cafeteria.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/06/16/michelle-obama-calls-house-republicans-roll-school-lunch-standards.html
Belafon
@Poopyman: I think John’s the only one who can view this video.
Steeplejack
@Poopyman:
Nobody can see it. Link is borked.
scav
I’m just enjoying a flashback to Raùl Meireles and it just being a still, so maybe no so bad.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Poopyman:
Angry old man with an apparently loaded assault rifle resists police.
GxB
@cleek: Well “Bqhatevwr” is SO last year – gotta keep up with the times and all.
Soonergrunt
It’s another old fat white guy doing an open carry thing with a long gun.
Can’t dance for shit.
sparrow
He did know his rights though, just kept asking if he was being detained. Heh, funny enough, the answer was YES YOU FREAKING LOON. Ugh, I am sick of these small-dick losers.
sharl
I played a hunch that it was the encounter between Kalamazoo MI police and the open carry gun nut discussed in earlier threads, and fragments of the embed codes (in what JGC posted above and what’s at the MLive site) do in fact appear to match.
You can see the post and accompanying video here. Note that the video – which I won’t be able to watch myself until later – runs a bit over 10 minutes.
Poopyman
@Belafon: @Steeplejack: So let’s start a pool to see who guesses closest to when Cole comes back and realizes the link is borked.
I’m in for “Never”.
scav
@The Dangerman: notexactlyspeaking of which, 60 new Teletubbies episodes in pipeline. Handbag alert!?!
SiubhanDuinne
Speaking of guns, I posted this at the tag end of the Netflix-Verizon thread, but it’s more appropriate here, and it’s a couple of pieces of good news:
1. Two grieving fathers look for common ground on gun violence. Richard Martinez, father of one of the Santa Barbara victims, and Peter Rodger, father of the shooter, who also died, met today and announced they will look for ways to work together to reduce gun violence.
2. The Supreme Court 5-4 has upheld a law prohibiting “straw purchases” of guns.
Baby steps are still steps.
PurpleGirl
@sharl:
I copied the link and pasted it into a new tab and was able to see it, and only it. If there was text from a newspaper or TV station, that was not included.
The guy needs to lose the weapon. Stat.
the Conster
@sparrow:
He has taught those rights to his grandson. What could go wrong?
Trollhattan
“You link nothing, Jo(h)n Cole.”
Liberty60
I can’t see the video either, but I bet he is white.
Otherwise the title would be “Cops shoot armed thug”.
Glocksman
It was only a 5-4 decision?
I can guess who the dissenting votes were.
skerry
Just promoting Domestic Tranquility, doncha know
Southern Beale
I can’t see the video either, and I don’t have any blocking. I think the code might be messed up.
I thought it might be THIS:
Concealed weapons holder accidentally shoots self, driver in Cleveland
CLEVELAND, Ohio – A concealed carry permit holder accidentally shot himself and another man while sitting in the passenger seat of a car on the city’s East Side, Cleveland police said.
The shooting happened about 7 p.m. Sunday near East 103rd Street and Pierpont Avenue.
The bullet ripped through the gun owner’s hand before it passed through the driver’s right leg and lodged in his left leg, police said.
Trollhattan
@PurpleGirl:
What’s the greater offence: the AK or the plaid jammies? Priorities, people!
I so couldn’t be a cop, dealing with this crap daily.
Southern Beale
Or maybe it was this:
“Video Captures MI Police Struggling To Respect Gun-Toting Ranter’s Open Carry Rights”
SiubhanDuinne
@Glocksman:
Yeah, the usual suspects. Kennedy voted with the good guys. Kagan wrote the majority opinion.
srv
A lovely story at the NYT’s about the Kagan’s and in-law Asst. SoS Victoria Nuland.
He’s excited about Hillary:
Tone In DC
Another ammosexual, this one retirement age, proceeds to Lose (what was left of his) Mind.
Once more for the cheap seats: Barack Obama is not going to confiscate your firearms. Stop freaking the hell out and acting like he has, or will. The NRA and its fellow greedheads just insinuated/pretended/lied through yellowed teeth saying the president wanted to impose such gun control.
/end rant
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne:
Let me guess. Fascist fuckstick Scalia and his lawn jockey, Thomas, were amongst the dissenters.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tone In DC: Sorry, but your assertions of fact are not heard by the ammosexuals, who hear only the bleatings of chickhawk fucksticks like Ted Nugent.
Southern Beale
@Villago Delenda Est:
ding! ding! ding! Thanks for playing!
Why howEVER did you guess?
Tone In DC
@Villago Delenda Est:
LULz.
And I cannot get over Ted not bathing for weeks (and smearing his sorry ass with waste) to get out of being drafted, back in the day.
Trollhattan
@Tone In DC:
Instead of sitting at home uh, polishing his receiver, he could be doing something fun and profitable with his neighbors at the senior center!
Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/06/15/3978872/fresno-man-jailed-after-meth-lab.html#storylink=cpy
Keith G
I highlighted (Chrome) right clicked and opened in new tab. It played. A very good example of how police should address a complex situation – when the complexity is a nonviolent (technically) stupid person (drunk? cognitively impaired?) with a gun that is not being pointed at other mortal beings.
Keith G
Deleted the double.
Suffern ACE
@srv: GAAAK.
Why does it seem that the more attention they pay to eastern europe and the long list of enemies in the Mideast, the higher the body count gets.
Rudi
Here’s a link to Mlive with text and more details. Same video 10+ minute.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/06/dash_cam_footage_from_open_car.html#incart_m-rpt-2
Higgs Boson's Mate
@srv:
Well if Robert Kagan is comfortable with you then what could go wrong?
daveNYC
I would love to hear what the dissent on that decision is. Guns can be regulated, but steps taken to get around those regulations are A-OK?
Liberty60
Repeal the 2nd Amendment.
Seriously. This shit has outlived any use or purpose it had, given our culture and current case law.
Lets make guns like cars. Licensed, registered, privileges that can be taken away. Preferably, before someone gets killed, not after.
Southern Beale
@Tone In DC:
A gun loon on Twitter got mightily offended at me today when I used the words “gun humpers” and used that as an example of how liberals are intolerant! (ummm…. right, yes I am intolerant of every idiot parading around with assault weapons because Freedom. Guilty as charged.) However, he had no problem calling me a gun grabber.
I don’t want their guns. I don’t want to control their guns. I want THEM to control their guns. The fact that they can’t, well, what can I say. I guess that means a grownup will have to do it for them.
They also have a nice little meme thingie about controlling guns like cars, and how you can do stuff like have a car on your private property and not register it and all all this stuff. And I’m like, hey that’s fine with me. As soon as your gun LEAVES your private property, then I’d like some restrictions.
Rudi
From the link.
This would be different if man was “Negro” and the city was Benton Harbor. While in BH no shooting, the man should be in jail for at least a mental evaluation…
Southern Beale
@Liberty60:
Lets make guns like cars. Licensed, registered, privileges that can be taken away. Preferably, before someone gets killed, not after.
Can’t. Constitution.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Keith G:
The cops acted with great restraint. OTOH. the odds are that if the person carrying the gun had been, say, black, his brains would have decorated the sidewalk the first time he refused to drop his weapon.
Gravenstone
Since this appears to be a firearms related thread, I got a good chuckle from the July issue of Guns and Ammo. Cover story about how some enterprising gun manufacturer made an end run on NY state’s restrictions on “assault style weapons” – by making an AR 15 style weapon with a pump action. So yeah, you had to completely change the action of the weapon so that it is no longer actually semi-automatic. Rather, you have to manually chamber a new round each and every time you wish to pull the fucking trigger, thus tossing your rate of fire and likely your rapid fire accuracy right out the fucking window. But by the gods, did you ever stick it to those bureaucrat politicians.
Fucking imbecilic, gun fellating lackwits. They are actually trying to sell this as “progress” to their sheep like adherants. All so they can retain that sexy “black gun” styling.
Southern Beale
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
This tied up a half a dozen police vehicles for 10 or 20 minutes, traffic at the nearby businesses ground to a halt. Thank god those police officers weren’t needed elsewhere for something like a bank robbery. Are we going to have to increase the size of police departments because of this? I mean, how is anyone supposed to know that an open carry loon isn’t a criminal? They don’t fucking wear signs. If I see a man parading around in his jammies carrying a big rifle, hell yeah I’m calling the police.
So it seems the gun humpers with their open carry hard-ons are creating the very police state they claim to not want.
SiubhanDuinne
@Villago Delenda Est:
And Alito. And the CJ.
Keith G
@Liberty60:
That plainly will not happen for many decades to come – at the least. You might as well ask for a unicorn that shits gold.
The best bet is to control the Presidency long enough to have a massive influence in the make up of the federal judiciary and to have a strong majority in the Senate – and have a Senate leadership willing to finish ripping up the undemocratic customs used in the Senate such as “Blue Slips”.
We also need to start winning back some state legislatures. A slow, but ultimately doable process.
Southern Beale
@Liberty60:
Also, the purpose was for a “well-regulated militia.” A point that seems to be lost on the gun loons.
Tone In DC
@Trollhattan:
A damn 64 year old doing this shit.
Dude has been watching a lot of Breaking Bad, I figure.
srv
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Mr. Obama better get on board, or we’ll have to wait for Hillary to re-free the Middle East.
Southern Beale
@Keith G:
Oooh I want a unicorn that shits gold!
Tone In DC
@Southern Beale:
“Gun humpers”, I like that. Descriptive yet succinct.
As for the intolerance charge, any winger accusing a liberal of this is truly blinded by a large, biblical plank.
Keith G
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: It’s wrong to say that. I think a lot depended on the professionalism of these officers and the fact that the weapon was pointed skyward. I would like to think that those officers (innocent til proven guilty) would respond to behavior and not color.
That said, there are a hell of a lot of jurisdictions where this would not have been a G rated video. And there are also many places where, as you mention, race/ethnicity alone would have initiated a very different outcome.
muddy
@Gravenstone: It’s not to maintain the black gun styling. It’s to muddy the waters about what constitutes an assault weapon. Then they can wank on about how you can’t judge the gun by its cover and whatnot.
Steeplejack
@srv:
Kagan has been cosmically wrong for years.
flukebucket
Classic opening sentence.
Glocksman
@daveNYC:
I just read a short piece on the case.
It turns out that the guy in question lied on the form when he said he was buying the gun for himself.
His argument is that the straw purchase law shouldn’t apply because the person he was buying the gun for was legally allowed to own firearms.
The government’s position is that the law prohibits straw purchases, period.
Absent legislative intent to allow certain types of straw purchases, the court made the right call.
ranchandsyrup
Hmmmmm. I think I’m going to email John several dozen times about the video embed fail.
Cassidy
@Southern Beale: He was white. That automatically makes him a good guy with a gun.
Gravenstone
@muddy: Shit, they’ve been doing that for years already. You can buy weapons that to all outward appearances are AR-15s, but are chambered for .22 LR. Much less lethal for man sized targets (although by no means non-lethal). And the ammosexuals howl to the hills about banning such an innocuous “target rifle”. In the end, its all about trying to maintain that sexy “military styling” look. But they’re not compensating for anything, nosiree Bob.
Steeplejack
@ranchandsyrup:
All caps! That really gets his attention.
Citizen_X
@srv:
As they say, Mission Accomplished.
Oh, and I notice that their family has been “serving” the war drum-beating community for generations. Apparently, though, not in uniform. Curious, that.
Shakezula
Embedded in the 2nd Amendment is the understanding that if a non-white person pulls this stunt, his ass will be shot into little bitty pieces.
shortstop
So they gave him back his gun with no charges. And when he shoots someone tomorrow, they’ll say no one could have predicted this. I mean, telling the cops “I hate you motherfuckers; there’s a revolution coming” is the kind of conversation you hear on every corner.
Trollhattan
@Tone In DC:
Boggles the mind, doesn’t it? Being in Fresno and all has me wondering whether ol’ Robert Short might be an ancient biker. If I recall my American Meth History (taught now, I believe, in 8th grade) biker gangs in the Central Valley and SoCal desert got the epidemic going in the ’70s and ’80s. Doubt they ever dreamed it would prove so prevalent, or that the cartels would take over what was a tidy business for them.
Southern Beale
@Glocksman:
This was the argument I got into on Twitter today. They gun nuts are all like, “but whaaaah then I can’t buy a gun as a GIFT!” Someone else chimed in that gifts are exempt. I have no fucking clue if that’s true or not but if it’s not true and you can’t buy a gun as a gift for someone, SO FUCKING WHAT. Grow the fuck up. Kids are being slaughtered in their kindergarten classes, you dumbfucks.
Anyhoo, the best part of this SCOTUS case is that the REASON the guy asked his buddy to buy the gun for him was because his friend got the law enforcement discount, being an ex-police officer. His friend wanted the discount, which is why he asked his buddy to lie on a background check form and buy the Glock for him. So, lie on a federal form to rip off a gun shop of a few bucks. Playing the world’s teeniest tiniest violin, but the gun loons are all lack Whaaa my freeeeedumb my freeeeeedumb!!!!
pseudonymous in nc
@Southern Beale:
“Keep your guns. Just don’t expect me to trust you with them or assume that you’re a Responsible Gun Owner™.”
Comrade Dread
So someone tell me again how I’m supposed to be able to tell a stalwart patriot exercising his 2nd amendment rights in the proud tradition of our forefathers, and a psychotic/drunk/high/dumbass loon who’s about to start killing everyone in sight?
pseudonymous in nc
@Glocksman:
Scalia was all ‘call the waahmbulance’ about it, but Kagan’s argument was pretty solid about the controlling legal framework: it’s no different than going into a gun shop and giving your name as Mickey Mouse, even if you’re legally allowed to buy under your own name.
Southern Beale
@Comrade Dread:
Intuition?
Liberty60
@Keith G:
Oh, absolutely, the 2nd isn’t going away anytime soon.
The point is go on the offensive, and put them on the defensive, forced to justify their position.
Instead of beginning every argument with “why of course owning a gun is just like being free to speak” we start to implant in everyone’s mind- “Why is owning a gun a right, but owning a car is not?” or “Is owning a gun really a natural right like speaking freely?”
Right now gun rights are seen as not just legislatively inviolable, but morally and culturally.
We need to change the conversation to crack that taboo, and make the possibility of guns being a privilege something real.
Nothing can become real until it first exists in our minds. That’s the first step.
Along with electing noncrazy people. But the two work together.
Southern Beale
Oh look what just popped in the email box:
Because GOD FORBID we should go to the goddamn grocery store unarmed. I mean, there might have been a robbery in progress and our 70-year-old Captain America could save the day. Or shoot himself in the foot.
Southern Beale
@Trollhattan:
Oh you’re in Fresno? Well, then, did you hear the one about the Fresno man who accidentally shot himself while playing dominoes? The story showed up in my in-box but has apparently been taken down. Wondering what happened.
SatanicPanic
@Comrade Dread: kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out
beth
I also saw that those Open Carry idiots held a rally in a Target parking lot this weekend and Target did nothing to stop them. Moms Demand Action is pushing Target to change its policy on open carry in its stores and I think that’s a place they’ve got a good shot at (no pun intended). If there’s any store that gears itself to the “moms pushing strollers” set, it’s Target. I’ve got a Target credit card and I’ve let them know I won’t shop there while they put their customers and employees in the position of having to decide whether that guy in camo with ammo is a homicidal nut or just a regular gun nut. I hope others will do the same.
I’m going to Kzoo soon – you better believe if I see some looney walking around me with a gun, I’m calling the police.
Trollhattan
@Southern Beale:
Not in Fresno (thank the lord) but have lived in Stockton, which is just a smaller version. Did not hear about domino boy, but we have a local story of a school teacher who spent part of his Saturday night mowing .down cyclists with his car.
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/15/6485185/man-arrested-after-hitting-three.html#storylink=cpy
Summertime, baby!
Randy P
As I noted on the earlier thread, I found it encouraging that there is actually a law against open carry while drunk in Houseman’s town. That’s the reason the police wanted to give him a breathalyzer. So even in a place like that, there’s a (gasp!) restriction on second amendment rights. And yet somehow civilization survives.
elftx
Would love it if these police depts could bill their wasted time with these nuts to the NRA.
Villago Delenda Est
@pseudonymous in nc: A “responsible gun owner” would accept the costs of demonstrating how responsible they are. Like assuming liability for the use of their weapons, by any party, authorized or unauthorized. However, because they oppose registration of firearms, it’s painfully obvious that they’re unwilling to assume responsibility should they fail to report the theft of their weapons due to their own negligence, or the use of their weapons by other parties that results in harm to another.
They shuck the responsibility for their toys at every turn. They want the rights, but not the inherent responsibilities that go hand in hand with them.
They are not responsible. They demonstrate this every time they brandish their firearms.
Villago Delenda Est
@Randy P:
Well, actually, civilization is preserved in those places. It’s where you don’t have those restrictions where civilization breaks down, because we have to show off our metal death p3nises, ya know, to compensate for our status as a bunch of Walter Pecks.
WereBear
@rikyrah: Thanks, that’s diabolical.
Really, it is. Are they trying to rival the Wansee Conference? Just much slower and dick-i-er?
Captain C
@Southern Beale: Given where he was carrying the gun, was his name Plaxico?
Southern Beale
@Villago Delenda Est:
yes, dammit please why isn’t this part of the “conversation”? That’s the ENTIRE point. God. Thank you for that.
The Other Chuck
@Villago Delenda Est:
Can we please be better than this, no matter what a vile monster the object of our derision is?
Last guy I scolded for racist terms turned out to be black, but aside from whether that made it okay, context doesn’t really come out in blog replies. Ultimately it’s a selfish reason: I don’t want to be painted with that brush by association.
Ash Can
This fuckwit was just lucky some good guy with a gun didn’t decide he was a bad guy with a gun.
Ruckus
@Tone In DC:
I’m amazed it worked. I saw lots of rather strange behavior when I took my draft “physical”. Guys wearing panties. Some nice ones by the way. But things like the urine test, pee in a small vial and then the unmarked vial is put in a rack with all the other unmarked vials. Same for the blood test. One tube, never marked, placed in a rack with all the rest of the unmarked tubes. If your pee was red, that maybe would get noticed. If you really demanded they would have you speak to a really bored looking dude sitting at a desk. BO and shit stains? Can’t imagine that would have gotten any attention.
Gex
@Southern Beale: Let’s introduce these asshats to the concept of the gift certificate. You can essentially buy the gun, they just have to go pick it up and put their name on the paperwork.
I have a lot of questions for people who want to put a gun out into the world that doesn’t have a paper trail to its owner.
Gex
These guys assert that standing around and waving their guns around at everyone isn’t threatening. If that is the case, there is nothing out there threatening enough to justify their position.
The Other Chuck
@Gex: Except ice tea and Skittles
Rasputin's Evil Twin
Let’s see, if I spot someone carrying a rifle or shotgun into a store, or just walking the streets, can I shoot him, because I’m a “good guy with a gun”? (Don’t let the name fool ya – I’d really be a good guy with a gun, honest.) Hey, if I’m a GGWaG, I can tell who’s a BGWaG, and act accordingly, really. It’s in the Second Amendment, or Second Commandment somewhere.
Joel
He was only seventeen, in a madman’s dream
The cops shot the kid, I still hear him scream…
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Southern Beale: I emphasize Hi-Point (the Joe Camel of the gun industry) as although they are not technically one of the Southern California “Ring of Fire” manufacturers, they are the bottom of the barrel as far as quality control, and the true miracle of this story is not that it didn’t kill anybody when Gramps McRacist dropped it, but that it didn’t go off just from the motion of him walking around.
Also, their price point (less than $150 for that fine piece of hardware Grandpa was hauling around), put plainly, means their target buyers are teenagers and young adults. You would never buy one of these if you were in any way a serious shooter.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Other Chuck: Would you prefer “House Ni*CLANG*”, perhaps?
The man is utter scum. He’s willing to assume the role that white racists demand of him.
Fuck him. If there was ever a “race traitor” on this planet, it’s guys like Clarence Thomas.
Southern Beale
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Well, you know what I find interesting is that when the guy’s holster broke, his next option was to tuck the gun in his waistband, a maneuver that looks super cool on TV but is responsible for a myriad of self-inflicted eunuch-isms. I mean, leaving the gun in the truck just plumb didn’t occur to him. I find that very odd.
Southern Beale
@Gex:
Where’s the damn “LIKE” button on this blog?
Phantom 309
@Shakezula: Ya gotta read that fine print!
Elizabelle
As soon as Hillary Rettig put up her link in the morning open thread, I knew that Mr. (*!$&) Houseman would be starring on the front page of Balloon Juice.
Take a bow, Hillary R too, for a funny comment on the Michigan Live newspaper site:
Still makes me laugh.
johnny aquitard
It’s always everyone else who has to accommodate them, isnt’ it?
It’s all on us, the rest of society. It’s never on them. We have to re-arrange our lives around their loony demands to walk up and down our streets with a deadly weapon.
They put everything on the rest of us, on our neighborhoods, on our schools, wherever we gather, on our social institutions including childhood, and they take no responsibility for themselves.
I want that changed. If they refuse to take responsibility and continue to make everyone else bear the costs of their acting out, then I will support having the guns taken away. They become a menace. Unrestricted firearms have no place in this society or any society worthy of the name. I can’t be the only firearm owner who changed his mind about this.
I can totally see why there are people who hate guns and demand them all to be melted down. And while I still do not agree that is a reasonable solution (but one I will support nevertheless), I no longer think their resentment and fear and anger and even hatred is unreasonable.
These gun rights absolutist freaks have given them every reason to feel that way.
Ivan X
@Villago Delenda Est:
Please, no. Don’t be an asshole because you’ve been reasonably called out.
All of that may or may not be true, but doesn’t change your choosing to use the langauge of white racists, and thereby conveying their message. You can only call Thomas a lawn jockey explicitly because he’s black; ergo, you’re being racist. You didn’t call Scalia anything race-based, after all.
And I also understand that you’re ostensibly speaking “for Scalia” when you call Thomas a lawn jockey. Only you’re not. Those are your words, using language that suggests you are capable of seeing black people as inferior to white people. If you didn’t, it wouldn’t occur to you to say it. These prejudices may come from the society we live in, but if we want to rise above them, we don’t give public voice to them, much less defend them.
Even if Thomas is a “race traitor” (and whether or not you’re qualified to make that judgment is a separate discussion) doesn’t explain why you’d want to sink to his level by using racial language, nor excuse your choosing to do so.
Kay
@johnny aquitard:
Agree 100%. I think that’s the key to the whole thing. I saw a video of one of the open carry parades inside a store and there’s this woman in the background and she looks at them, and then scurries to grab what looks like a bag of diapers off the shelf and ducks down that same aisle, other direction, away from them.
I thought, “You assholes. You’re scaring her”.
TriassicSands
This is Amurka.
You have a right to remain stupid…
DavidTC
@Southern Beale:
You know, it used to be, if you wanted to distract the police from a crime you’re going to commit, you would have to break the law somewhere else. Have someone go somewhere else, fire a gun off. Or hurl a brick through the window of a jewelry store, while across town the other guys waited for the police to respond there before they hit a bank. At the very least, call in a bogus police report.
All actual crimes. The closest to ‘legal’ that used to be possible was to leave a suspicious package somewhere, but I suspect that doing that to get the police called on purpose is also a crime, although they’d have to prove it was that. (Although I guess it might be littering, so technically illegal anyway.)
We know how it works, it’s not just a trope on TV. It’s actually how professional robbers operate. (Granted, most robberies are committed by idiots. But there are professional crews out there.)
Now, apparently, you just need to have someone standing around with a gun. Perfectly 100% legal. Or, to make it even better, have three or four people wandering around with guns, and then have all but one leave before the police get there.
I’m not a huge fan of police overreach, but the entire point of the police is to keep the peace. Having people walking around randomly with long guns scaring people is the opposite of ‘the peace’.