I don’t ever want to see a spectacle like this happen in my country again:
Via John Richardson, who catches “Who are the police at war with?” A damned good question to all the fools who keep asking why weapons of war belong on our streets. Easy answer, they aren’t weapons of war. If they were, the police would have no business carrying them.
“Who are they at war with?” American citizens, of course!
“If they were, the police would have no business carrying them.”
Pennsy residents of a certain age: Remember Frank Rizzo’s “tank” back in the ’70s?
Actually it was an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) but as weapons of war go, I’ll accept that until something better comes along.
(Actually it was Mayor Goode who used a bomb to burn down an entire neighborhood, something like 67 houses. I could hear the gunfire from the outside stairwell where I worked at the time.)
I don’t really remember Rizzo. I remember his campaigns for Mayor after he was essentially a has-been. I do remember the Move fire, but I was 11, and the real implications weren’t clear to me then. Reading about it later, I’m surprised by the parallels to Waco. Yet Waco fired up a lot of the gun community, and Move didn’t really. I can’t really attribute the difference in reaction to good things. I think the community has changed quite a lot since then, and for the better, in that regard.
Well, the MOVE people were black, mostly nuts, and their behaviors didn’t inspire affection from much of anybody, including their other African-American neighbors. I think Ramona Africa is still around, and seems to turn up in the media now and then.
I think the phenomenon you’re describing is related to the reason why, though more kids may get shot in Chicago in a month than were killed in Newtown, their pictures aren’t and never have been splashed all over the media, like the Newtown kids.
Comparing the people of MOVE to the Branch Davidians is fascinating because the American Left and the News Media systematically mischaracterized who the Davidians were to the American public.
The reaction of the American Left to the Waco disaster frequently boiled down to ‘those cracker gun-nuts had it coming’, with a laser-like focus on the nasty character David Koresh who fronted the group. Yet if you looked at who was actually present at Mt. Carmel it was a living version of the “rainbow coalition” straight from central casting. The vast majority of the people at Waco were either women, children, immigrants or non-white people.
OFWG at Waco were rare indeed, yet that is who the Left thought they were killing!
Of course I’m sure that the reaction of the Left to Waco had absolutely nothing to do with the fact the President at the time was a Democrat and the focus of the JBT at Waco was enforcement of anti-gun laws!
OK, we’re racists. Thanks for making how you view us crystal clear.
Obvious non-parallels were that the MOVE bombing happened in what looks like less than 24 hours, vs. the Satanic ATF starting it with a totally incompetent rice bowl raid, it consuming the nation’s interest for 50 days, then on Patriot’s Day the Feds rather clearly emulating the Massacre at Béziers, AKA “Kill them all, God will know His own”.
Philadelphia is run by murderous thugs? This is news?
Vs. the sainted FBI executing a plan that would clearly result in the deaths of nearly all those they were informing “This is not an attack!” as their engineering combat vehicles pulled their buildings down on top of them? With the Attorney General taking “full responsibility” … and not stepping down? Everyone responsible walking free?
Plenty of us were old enough to remember what happened after the Watergate break-in, which included the conviction and imprisonment of the sitting Attorney General for … well, “No one died in Watergate.”
I think things have changed quite a lot since 1985, which is not surprising, given that 1985 was almost 30 years ago at this point. It was my grandparent’s generation that was running things then. My father was younger than I am now in 1985. And yeah, my grandparents were quite conservative, quite Republican, and quite racist. My parents generation, who run things now, are quite different in their outlook in that regard.
And actually, if I recall, it was a State Police helicopter that dropped the explosive device. So I’m sorry to say my state was run by murderers at the time.
Actually I’d like to see that spectacle repeated everywhere, until no politician has the arrogance anymore to go up to a podium and try to tell the proles to keep their opinions to themselves.
That appeared to be an example of what I’ve referred to as the rare occurrence of the grass roots providing the leadership for their leaders. I’m sure the NRA didn’t orchestrate that wonderfully spirited behavior!
If you want to have some fun, get in a conversation with them about how the police carry firearms for self defense (and defense of others) in the same cities and neighborhoods where private citizens carry firearms for self defense. They’ll quickly corner themselves where they imply the police use their firearms for purposes other than self defense, which would be murder. It freaks them out when you point out the reality of their position.
I’m very much reminded of the scene from V for Vendetta (jump to 2:30):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxQX9fYf2aI
“With so much chaos, someone will do something stupid [cop shoots kid in mask…] And when they do, things will turn nasty [mob lynches cop]… And then the governor will be forced to do the only thing he knows how to do [deployment of paramilitary SWAT troopers]…”
The next step in NY are the courts. If the courts fail the 2A, it is up to Gov Cuomo to direct LEOs to enforce. Enough of them WILL do so, as seen by the arrest of Nathan Haddan. Then it is a question of jury nullification, and if the community will tolerate throwing lots of people in jail.
If Gov Cuomo directs the police to aggressively enforce the law and run some SWAT raids on bitter clinger racist rednecks then this could go south faster. What happens when a military vet facing a lifetime in prison decides he doesn’t want to go to jail for the rest of his life for an AR, a beretta 92, and some mags in the trunk and resists at a traffic stop? What happens when a SWAT team kills dogs, terrorizes children, and hauls off tax paying blue collar guys for life in prison (if they don’t shoot them in the raid)?
The best case I can see in that scenario is that local sheriffs and county councils exhibit leadership and exert control over whatever “committees of safety” form. I would much prefer for a sheriff’s deputy and a posse of helpers to run a roadblock that turns away NY State Police cars and prevents them from entering the county than for people to take things into their own hands.
I really thought a lot of New Yorkers would roll over and comply, quietly resist (a la Cali & Canada), or move to PA. At least some folks in the upstate do not appear to want to move.
I’m thinking of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. Roughly 5,000 Whiskey Rebels mustered in the frontier area around Pittsburgh, to defy federal authority. Then, George Washington federalized militias from other states (notably New Jersey), and when 13,000 federal troops showed up, they found only 17 people to arrest. Sixteen were acquitted, one was convicted, but then pardoned. And thus ended the Whiskey Rebellion.