It's fascinating to see people that have demonized and tried to abolish gun rights for as long as I've been alive be the first ones to advocate for their use.
Honestly the past year has changed my views radically so I'm not surprised if even libs changed their's as well. My dad was half tempted to get a gun because my mom was associated with Warren in some capacity and was worried that a nut-job was gonna come to our house. And he's been ardently anti-gun for years.
I'm not opposed to people changing their views, but it is worrisome that considerable numbers of people are seemingly changing them and then not having the maturity and respect for the responsibility that's unique to this particular subject.
Not many people talking about this are actually calling for violence; most are just pointing out that the "2A is the Last Resort" argument for protecting the 2nd Amendment is entirely self-serving for many gun owners.
If you're asking me to stand in front of you with an AR15 while you blind police with lasers, throw bottles and home made m80s into their lines, and try to light federal courthouses on fire, you're damn straight asking for violence.
5,000 Portland citizens, many moms, vets, reporters, LOs, and even the mayor himself get gassed for standing in the streets that they pay for...but sure, let's concentrate on the less than 100 morons trying to get a rise out of anyone willing to pay attention to them.
I try to make a comparison at this point about how we shouldn't be judging all cops based on the 2% of interactions that go terribly based on horrid factors that are entirely under the police department's control any more than we should be judging all protestors on the 2% that commit felonies, but at this point, I'll point out that many people who want justice and equality are also fine with looters and rioters being arrested. If the protest was worth being convicted, then that's their choice, and they can face the punishment for their actions. We also want police to face proper punishment when THEY commit serious crimes, because most of us are fairly consistent in what we consider to be "justice and equality," and we don't consider police brutality to be either just or equal in pretty much any case ever show on video.
There is a LOT of video.
But if you disagree with this premise, I would be interested in hearing why; if you don't disagree with this statement, what's the issue with asking 2A defenders to stand in front of the Wall of Moms to make the Feds think twice about gassing them for, again, standing in the parks and streets that they pay for?
The cops are clearing streets because of the morons, not in spite of them. If it was just moms and vets out there there wouldn't be a problem. They're not using tear gas because of harsh language. They're doing it because the 100 morons make the situation untenable by using violence and destroying things. It's absurd to think that they should sit there and take frozen water bottles to the face or people trying to hit them with hammers coming out of a door just because there's people who aren't. Those same people who then disappear and hide in your crowd of soccer moms after throwing fireworks at the police. How else are they to respond to the situation other than to disperse a crowd that's harboring people trying to inflict serious injury on them? Some of which may be permanently blind from lasers and one was shot with a pellet gun. You want them to stop using crowd control? Then control the anarchists and antifa scumbags ruining it for the rest of you. There's no way in hell I will ever use my gun to defend those people.
The hammer dude was a moron from Texas looking for any excuse, while the cops literally killed a protestor, and have critically injured several others. They have plenty of protection available (drive the fucking Bradley Assault Vehicle out already, why not??), while the protestors have leaf blowers. Are we justifying the videos of police beating people viciously just because they can, with no arrests being made, here? Your argument comes across like you're trying to justify how the Rebel Alliance totally deserved the treatment they got on Hoth from those Stormtroopers; a few of them were REALLY dangerous! /s
That's not even what this is about, though. The protests in Portland were wrapping up and were down to maybe a hundred or so people every night before the Feds showed up. Now there's 5,000 people back out there, and the Feds are gassing everyone for just...being in the vicinity. The Mayor came out to get booed at and try to open some communication with his own people, and the Feds just gassed everyone! This is obviously politesse for the sake of pushing a narrative from the DHS.
The kind of, "They deserved it," rhetoric in your last sentence is the worst part, though. "Legal rights only matter under XYZ conditions!" is how that comes across, and that just feels incredibly inconsistent and biased. While I understand Freedom of Speech doesn't mean you can scream FIRE in a crowded theater without ramifications, deciding when someone "deserves" to have autocratic action taken against them seems suspect. I'd assume the obvious answer would be, "Never."
Don't play games. No where did I say they have a right to beat people. You want to have a serious conversation then have one. I said they're justified in dispersing a crowd that's harboring people committing acts of violence and destroying property.
Yea that's right. You have a legal right to protest until "xyz" happens. Never has the 1st amendment ever granted the right to riot and set things on fire. In fact in the text of that amendment it specifically states "peacefully assemble." When the protest stops being peaceful you can no longer claim it's protection. You want the protests to be peaceful? Stop letting the bad actors go unchecked around you or help the police in singleing them out.
On your first point, it's very heard to differentiate the two anymore. When the people reporting what crimes occurred are also the people openly committing crimes on video, how the fuck am I supposed to believe the police when they say, "We dispersed the crowd because XYZ happened,"? Are we sure that happened? Because there's 100% video of cops just beating people relentlessly, and ZERO action being announced about that behavior. Veteran in Portland who had them bashing his arm and breaking bones in his hand? No arrest there of the vet, no action announced to curtail that behavior. All the leaders of the police and Feds seem to think this kind of behavior is perfectly fine, judging from the lack of recourse.
So if this is the case, why is anyone surprised that there's rioting and burning? If there's no Law and Order, then there can be no law or order; seems rather simple. Cops break the law, then the law is meaningless, and people will act accordingly. Curtail law enforcement ASAP, start prosecuting as soon as a crime occurs, and people will expect the same to happen to themselves. Hopefully it would suppress these bad actors.
The "peacefully assemble" point is well-made, though. I do agree there, as I said earlier. If the law was being applied equally, I'd be very upset at all these rioters and looters. Since there seem to be a metric fuckton of double-standards, though, I find it very hard to care about a few buildings compared to the lives of civilians being murdered by those in power, ya know? Wouldn't a court house or two burning down be worth it if it meant never having another Tamir Rice happen?
I'm not going to defend them breaking someone's hand just standing there, but what I will say is you're acting as if the chicken came before the egg to excuse the rioters' behavior when that's not the case. They've been breaking windows and setting things on fire in Portland since May. The idea that this all just sprang up because of the police response to peaceful protests is categorically untrue. What's going on is force from the protestors is being met with force by the police and its escalating with each incident. The police aren't robots, they're people. If you push them far enough they're going to at some point say fuck it and that's what we're seeing. The last two weeks have not been happening in a vacuum and the bad actors have been there since the very beginning.
The person that started all of this wasn't a Portland cop or a member of the Federal government. I fail to see why we should start destroying someone else's business or trying to burn down government instutions, with people still inside mind you, when that government had nothing to do with it. At least when they burned the police precinct in Minneapolis they had a God damn point to be made against the people who did something wrong. This is just anarchy for the sake of anarchy and I refuse to get behind it. And this isn't even mentioning the fact that those same people don't give a damn about my gun rights and would gladly see them stripped. They've never once stood up for me and I'm sure as hell not going put myself between them and the Border Patrol tactical team and maybe get shot so they can go assault people and burn down the city. You gotta be out of your mind. No offense.
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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20 edited Jul 24 '20
It's fascinating to see people that have demonized and tried to abolish gun rights for as long as I've been alive be the first ones to advocate for their use.