Courtesy of Mother Jones:
On Memorial Day this week, a former Marine in Texas named James got a couple calls from friends who'd spotted an unusual gathering in downtown Fort Worth: Roughly a dozen people, mostly men, were hanging out in the middle of the city's cultural district, armed with semi-automatic rifles. James quickly knew what his friends were describing, having recently encountered an open-carry demonstration himself in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. An independent TV commercial producer who sometimes films live events, James headed downtown with his camera to get some footage.
What he saw there struck him as especially provocative. Not only had the open-carry activists come to a typically relaxed, family friendly part of town, they were displaying intimidating firearms just three days after a major gun massacre in Southern California. What he didn't anticipate was that they would soon be pursuing him for several city blocks with cameras of their own, harassing him and later posting the footage online, where they would also level homophobic slurs and violent threats against him.
I do not know how that guy did not lose his cool. Listen to what they did in an attempt to provoke him:
In a video obtained by Mother Jones that was posted online later that day by one of the activists, the group can be seen pursuing and harassing James through downtown Fort Worth. "I'm following this guy around," declares one of them, setting off after him with his weapon slung across his back. He and others stay right behind James for several city blocks, following him through traffic and taunting him along the way. James grows more agitated and tells them off, calling them assholes and bullies.
"We're being polite, you're calling people names," one of the gun activists pursuing him says.
"You're not being polite out here with assault rifles the weekend after people lost their children," James retorts, before again trying to walk away.
The harassment continues down the street. "Are you gonna cry?" one says. "Sounds like you're about to cry." Another says: "What's wrong with that guy—is he a liberal?
Men openly carrying assault rifles following a veteran around and harassing him. And THIS is supposed to convince people to become more accepting of seeing armed men walking the streets of America?
I would like to think I would be pretty cool headed, and I KNOW they wanted this guy to get physical, but I would have had a hard time nor knocking one of these idiots on their ass.
This is kind of behavior is WAY out of line.
Gryphen,
ReplyDeleteAllow me to make a minor correction. "Ammosexuals harass Marine Veteran on Memorial Day." To call them 'gun activists' is to give them too much dignity.
Ammosexuals.
DeleteI love that. And it describes them perfectly!
Excellent post.
DeleteThis video as recently taken down from the Mother Jones Youtube channel, presumably because it didn't get the reaction the people who shot it expected.
These assholes remind me of bands of feral, rabid dogs. They're going to push their luck just so far before someone gets hurt. I'm just waiting for the tensions to go over the top and we see people getting killed.
ReplyDeleteSound like a perfect case of stand your ground. I would have headshotted each of them if they were following me and calling me names. Self defense is a two way street.
ReplyDeletehead shot only after carefully making sure all bystanders (and people in buildings and passing cars ) are not endangered in any way, right?
Deletebecause you are a responsible...
right, right?
and no people are going to be injured by return fire from the gun toting buddies.
DeleteIt will all be safe and fun, just like in a video game.
since this is Texas, it would help to be white while standing your ground
DeleteThis type 'reaction' will occur in our future - mark my words!
DeleteThe jerks feel emboldened doing this and seem assured that no one will confront them to stop their actions. (Least of all the military guy they are following and taunting - he can't respond in an ugly tone to them because of their numbers and his being unarmed!)
ReplyDeleteIs this the next thing we are going to see 'more of' throughout the nation? These idiots appear to be stepping up their intentions a little at a time.
I foresee fighting on the streets with the killings of each other. How far away from it are we?
I'm getting angrier and angrier watching the hate, racism, negativism, killing of children, no gun laws, more and more idiots owning guns, the flaunting of wearing guns on their person, more 'carrying' gun permits being issued along with no laws in place to check the backgrounds of folks purchasing guns as to mental health issues, etc.
Our current U.S. Congress does nothing except rip off the taxpayers. They do so by giving more tax breaks to corporations, increasing their own salaries and then voted last session to NOT provide increased benefits to our veterans. (The vote was a Republican led/majority and now they are on the street saying they support our veterans!)
There is also their lack of care to the middle class folks and the poor (especially brown and black folks!). They vote down funding for various issues - proper (healthy) food for school kids, unemployment benefit extensions and anything that has President Obama's name to it!
We are one sick nation and it's getting worse and worse! We will become a third world nation if this madness isn't stopped!
Pay close attention for whom you vote into any office. Check their records if they are incumbents - see how they vote and what they say - because often the two do NOT mesh!
Spot on.
DeleteA pure example of the real goal of the open carry bullies. They just like the idea that they can cause fear in other people and that the people they are harassing and frightening have to take it because they don't dare to try to fight back.
ReplyDeleteThey are malevolent bullies and losers, who have gone their whole lives feeling inferior.
Their warped concept of masculinity is interpreted as power and only power. If others fear them, they must be Real Men.
But all their worth comes from an object, not from within. They are not functioning adult men with the character, emotions, morality, and judgment to show it.
They are indeed less than real men and unfortunately too damaged and stupid to know it. They are dangerous, warped, creatures and must be stopped.
They are children in adult bodies.
DeleteIt's one thing to just walk and carry your penis extenders, but to actively harass, mock, follow and threaten takes it to an abominable level of unacceptability. They're really just white boy gangs that get their kicks from threatening and bullying others. I hope that people arm themselves with pepper spray or some kind of deterrent to give themselves a sense of protection from these hooligan assholes. Texas really doesn't seem like a very nice place to live with all I read in the news. It's seems too risky to just live your life. If it were me, I'd hightail it out of that state, pronto.
ReplyDeleteTexas and a few other of those southern states. Too much racism, anger and hate within their populations!
DeleteStatement by the President on Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl
ReplyDeletehttp://theobamadiary.com/2014/05/31/statement-by-the-president-on-sergeant-bowe-bergdahl/
Where are the responsible NRA members acting to stop this intimidation, carried out in their name?
ReplyDeleteWouldn't that be helpful? I think even when someone gets shot, the NRA will be silent. They are the biggest bunch of cowardly bullies there are.
DeleteJust another example of the cognitive dissonance of these so called "Patriots". The open carry people are folks that would never have passed muster in order to join the military; they are overweight, have alcohol and drug issues, are woefully out of shape and they run around 'playing soldier' because they are unable to ever be one. They tilt at windmills and open carry against imaginary enemies and are a "well regulated militia" only in their own minds.
ReplyDeleteA sadder lot of human beings I've rarely seen.
How can it be legal to harass and intimidate people publicly the way these open-carry-mental-defectives do? Don't the vast majority of Americans have the right to live their lives peacefully and not in fear of some lurking gun maniacs?
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
Not if we allow the GOP to be in charge. This will be every town in America.
DeleteEvery citizen that disapproves should walk up and shove their unarmed sleves into the ammosexuals space.... think someone will get killed?
ReplyDeleteHa, ha ha, of course one the the guntards says "we hope you go to heaven"! The gun retards are actually religious retards too! How many strikes can these people have against them in the genetic lottery?
ReplyDeleteSo you can't walk around, get in someone's face, behave in a threatening and intimidating manner, put them in fear for their life, prevent them from their pursuit of happiness, and rob them of their liberty to be secure in their person.
ReplyDeleteUnless you do it with a gun.
Then it's okay.
"Unless you do it with a gun."
DeleteApparently that's what the Foundling Fathers and Jeebus intended when they carved The Constitution into Plymouth Rock while Paul Revere was ringin' that bell.
Hmm ... more from Texas. The big metal penis compensating men had another gun event at a Ft. Worth, TX Home Depot on Saturday.
ReplyDeletehttp://joemygod.blogspot.com/2014/05/texas-gun-nuts-invade-home-depot.html
IF I didn't know better, they seem like Westboro Baptist jackasses and sound like them too. One day of the year, can't the Veterans have just one day to remember, mourn, reflect and share their grief with others while respectful people honor them or just leave them be?
ReplyDeleteThey fought for the douchebags right to bully and show off their instruments of death? What kind of world has this become?
I encourage black, hispanic, and Muslim people to join in with them! I'm sure there will be no negative consequences when non-white folks carry guns in public.
ReplyDeleteIf ever there was a use for the para-militaries we have fostered,
ReplyDelete(in the way of our local police forces across the country), this is it. These gun toters want blood in the streets, give it to them. Flush them out and give them what they're asking for, and be done with them.
I just watched the video and now I want to bang my head against a wall. How can these people (men and at least one woman) strut around city streets with their high-powered weapons waving American flags and blessing the people they are stalking? Don't they understand what they are doing? They are out there to intimidate and to frighten the rest of us -- into what, going out and buying guns ourselves???
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
In what way was this not stalking?
ReplyDeleteThey were literally hunting this man like he was wild game.
Laws were broken here and they are on video.
How is what they did not "Menacing"?
ReplyDelete