Freedom Fighters Getting Gay with Guns
(Special No Prize for guessing the author of the title, and the book he wrote.)
So yeah, it happened again, folks - a couple Propagandists of the Deed decided to see what they could do to spark off what they thought would be the Second American Revolution.
Well, actually the Third. But who's counting?
Anyway, Jerad and Amanda Miller entered a chain pizza restaurant in Las Vegas yesterday, pulled guns and shot dead two police officers. After shooting and disarming the dead police officers, the Millers draped one of the officers with the Gadsden Flag depicted above, adding a swastika for good measure. The first dead officer had a note pinned to his uniform that proclaimed that The Revolution had started.
By the way, the 'revolution' was televised - or, at least, caught on the eatery's surveillance cameras.
The Millers then strolled over to the nearby Wal-Mart after picking up two backpacks that had been left outside the restaurant.
Jerad Miller entered and fired a round off, again proclaiming that the 'revolution' had started, and adding that people needed to leave the store. Amanda was busily loading the backpacks into a shopping cart.
Why a Wal-Mart? We don't know yet. Carry on.
A fellow by the name of Wilcox decided to confront Jerad Miller at this point. Wilcox was what the NRA extolls as "a good guy with a gun;" he had a concealed carry license and a firearm. All well and good, but unfortunately Mr. Wilcox had no idea that the scraggle-haired woman pushing the cart was with Jerad.
Mr. Wilcox died when Amanda shot him from behind, and the Millers started moving deeper into the store as the cops started showing up.
At some point Amanda got wounded, and she decided that they weren't going to be taken alive. With them both holed up at the rear of the place, she shot her husband dead, then shot herself. She died on the way to the hospital.
Yes, this is a tragedy. My flippant tone in recounting what I heard earlier from the Sheriff of Metro Las Vegas is partly my way of shielding my real feelings and reflecting what some in this fading Republic of ours seem to think is the inevitability of gun violence. "What's a few more school shootings?" they ask, and shrug as another group of people get holes put in them.
Or, in the words of Sam 'Joe the (not-) Plumber' Wurzelbacher, "Your dead kids don't trump my gun rights."
And you'll keep saying that, Sam my lad, until it's your child lying bleeding on the sidewalk.
Apparently, the Millers had holed up with Cliven Bundy at his ranch until they were invited to leave (apparently Jerad had a criminal record). The Gadsden Flag, the current emblem of the right-wing Tea Party, and the swastika appear to point toward them being part of the "sovereign citizen" subculture - they think that the government, all of it, is a bunch of fascist usurpers and the police are the enemy.
Based on their Facebook account, they were also conspiracy theorists (chemtrails!).
One commentator on MSNBC immediately trotted out the C word - "crazy." As I've mentioned in an earlier post regarding Anders Breivik, the Millers may not have been crazy, but suffering from a viewpoint that they've rationalized to be true, and are willing to act based on that viewpoint. To their point of view, they're perfectly rational.
Just as Anders Breivik rationally killed 77 people, mostly children, and nineteen Saudis and Yemenis rationally hijacked planes and flew them into buildings on a bright morning in September of 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.
I think that the main problem with these rationalizations are that they are out of place in this country. Granted, in the United States you are free to think what you like and (within certain boundaries) say what you like. It's when you start to act that you drift outside the norms of society.
And, again in my opinion, if you attack the police you are attacking the guardians of society, and therefore you forfeit your right to be in that society.
I grieve with the families of the slain officers.
"Cry sorrow, sorrow - yet let Good prevail!"
- Aeschylus
(The Gadsden Flag, of Revolutionary War vintage. Image courtesy of Wikipedia. Fair use, bitches!)
So yeah, it happened again, folks - a couple Propagandists of the Deed decided to see what they could do to spark off what they thought would be the Second American Revolution.
Well, actually the Third. But who's counting?
Anyway, Jerad and Amanda Miller entered a chain pizza restaurant in Las Vegas yesterday, pulled guns and shot dead two police officers. After shooting and disarming the dead police officers, the Millers draped one of the officers with the Gadsden Flag depicted above, adding a swastika for good measure. The first dead officer had a note pinned to his uniform that proclaimed that The Revolution had started.
By the way, the 'revolution' was televised - or, at least, caught on the eatery's surveillance cameras.
The Millers then strolled over to the nearby Wal-Mart after picking up two backpacks that had been left outside the restaurant.
Jerad Miller entered and fired a round off, again proclaiming that the 'revolution' had started, and adding that people needed to leave the store. Amanda was busily loading the backpacks into a shopping cart.
Why a Wal-Mart? We don't know yet. Carry on.
A fellow by the name of Wilcox decided to confront Jerad Miller at this point. Wilcox was what the NRA extolls as "a good guy with a gun;" he had a concealed carry license and a firearm. All well and good, but unfortunately Mr. Wilcox had no idea that the scraggle-haired woman pushing the cart was with Jerad.
Mr. Wilcox died when Amanda shot him from behind, and the Millers started moving deeper into the store as the cops started showing up.
At some point Amanda got wounded, and she decided that they weren't going to be taken alive. With them both holed up at the rear of the place, she shot her husband dead, then shot herself. She died on the way to the hospital.
Yes, this is a tragedy. My flippant tone in recounting what I heard earlier from the Sheriff of Metro Las Vegas is partly my way of shielding my real feelings and reflecting what some in this fading Republic of ours seem to think is the inevitability of gun violence. "What's a few more school shootings?" they ask, and shrug as another group of people get holes put in them.
Or, in the words of Sam 'Joe the (not-) Plumber' Wurzelbacher, "Your dead kids don't trump my gun rights."
And you'll keep saying that, Sam my lad, until it's your child lying bleeding on the sidewalk.
Apparently, the Millers had holed up with Cliven Bundy at his ranch until they were invited to leave (apparently Jerad had a criminal record). The Gadsden Flag, the current emblem of the right-wing Tea Party, and the swastika appear to point toward them being part of the "sovereign citizen" subculture - they think that the government, all of it, is a bunch of fascist usurpers and the police are the enemy.
Based on their Facebook account, they were also conspiracy theorists (chemtrails!).
One commentator on MSNBC immediately trotted out the C word - "crazy." As I've mentioned in an earlier post regarding Anders Breivik, the Millers may not have been crazy, but suffering from a viewpoint that they've rationalized to be true, and are willing to act based on that viewpoint. To their point of view, they're perfectly rational.
Just as Anders Breivik rationally killed 77 people, mostly children, and nineteen Saudis and Yemenis rationally hijacked planes and flew them into buildings on a bright morning in September of 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.
I think that the main problem with these rationalizations are that they are out of place in this country. Granted, in the United States you are free to think what you like and (within certain boundaries) say what you like. It's when you start to act that you drift outside the norms of society.
And, again in my opinion, if you attack the police you are attacking the guardians of society, and therefore you forfeit your right to be in that society.
I grieve with the families of the slain officers.
"Cry sorrow, sorrow - yet let Good prevail!"
- Aeschylus
posted by Walt at 3:16 PM
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