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America prides itself on free speech. However, if you threaten to hurt or kill the president, expect a knock on your door. What’s more, if you’ve got guns, you won’t have them for long after posting specific threats against the POTUS or his family.

The U.S. Secret Service investigates these threats. Not surprisingly, they have no sense of humor about them. With all of the vitriol that’s flowed since the election, Secret Service agents have been busy,

A Dataminr search found 12,000 tweets with the words “assassinate Trump” and Mashable details how the Secret Service deals with threats against the president:

Former U.S. Secret Service special agent Tim Franklin, who is now a criminology and criminal justice professor of counterterrorism and cybercrimes at Arizona State University, said in a phone call Tuesday that “it’s the people who have a true and genuine intent to do harm that the Secret Service is worried about.”

That’s why one-off posts and people with no record of threatening messages tend to get passed over. He said the Secret Service is looking out for trends and consistent behavior, like the person who repeats their intent to kill the president over time. If someone has made threats in the past they are more likely to get investigated when they post another “Kill Trump” post.

“They’re not going to to beat down the door of everybody who makes a negative Twitter comment,” Franklin said, which may be a relief to anyone who tweeted an off-hand and not entirely serious death wish for the new president.

But for users who use certain language and specific details about the president, his location and how the assassination will happen, the Secret Service will likely take notice.

Want to lose your guns for life? Want to spend up to five years in a federal prison? Take to Twitter and announce that it’s your life goal to assassinate Donald Trump like cops say this idiot did, per the NY Daily News:

A suburban Cleveland man who tweeted that his “life goal is to assassinate Trump” was charged with making threats on the president-elect, the feds said.

Zachary Benson, 24, also tweeted “F—ing fools. I hate you all” just as election returns assuring Donald Trump’s victory hit national airwaves, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Monday and obtained by WKYC-TV. Investigators said he was later apologetic about the tweets.

“Diplomacy. F—ing fools. I hate you all. I want to bomb every one of your voting booths and your general areas,” Benson tweeted at 1:25 a.m. on Nov. 9, according to investigators.

“My life goal is to assassinate Trump,” he tweeted 17 minutes later, the complaint showed. “Don’t care if I serve infinite sentences. That man deserves to decease existing.”

“Decease existing?” That constitutes criminal misuse of the English language right there.

Heather Lowrey added her warm wishes for President Trump, too. Cops say she used Twitter to post her hope that someone would be kind enough to assassinate the Commander in Chief. From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

A Louisville woman could face up to five years in prison if charged and convicted for a tweet suggesting somebody assassinate President Donald Trump, a U.S. Secret Service official said Tuesday.

The U.S. Secret Service field office in Louisville is still investigating the tweet sent by Heather Lowrey, according to special agent Richard Ferretti. It said, “If someone was cruel enough to assassinate MLK, maybe someone will be kind enough to assassinate Trump. #bekind #trump #lovetrumpshate,” according to a screenshot provided to the Courier-Journal.

Lowrey’s Twitter account has since been deleted, as has her Facebook page. In addition to the U.S. Secret Service investigation, Lowrey has faced consequences from at least three employers.

Ferretti said Tuesday that U.S. Secret Service agents have interviewed her and several others and conducted a background check. At the conclusion of their investigation, they will submit the results to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which will decide on potential charges.

With Heather’s idea of “kindness” and “love”, who needs any enemies?

In short, those who don’t like President Trump should feel free to criticize him. This is a free country after all. But they shouldn’t be stupid about it.

Those who don’t care about serving “infinite sentences” in a federal correctional facility? By all means, go right ahead and post away to your over-sharing heart’s content. Who knows? Maybe future threat-making Trump haters will get to meet Zachary Benson in person.

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61 COMMENTS

  1. It’s gonna be a fun 8 years. We talk about keeping a supply of ammo. But we need a post on keeping a supply of popcorn, chips, salsa and beverages of choice.

    The entitled sjw’s are having a yuge meltdown and we got front row seats to the show.

    • My commie-dem coworker showed my a Facebook post from yesterday… apparently a blog somewhere realised that Donald Trump is an anagram of “Lord Dampnut”. I laughed my butt clean off when she told me the libtards on that blog have taken to calling hom by his new “title”.
      I move that we seize this one from them and take full ownership of it: We, the Trolls and Goblins of the Deplorable Horde must swear our allegiance to Lord Dampnut.
      Hail Lord Dampnut!!!

  2. Our nation’s youth, marinated for their entire young lives in public school, leftist horsesheit. It’ll take a generation to deprogram them.

    • “It’ll take a generation to deprogram them”. I’m 21, and I’d say that’s… optimistic, to put it kindly.

  3. Oh, the irony of suggesting murder with the hashtag #lovetrumpshate.

    I dunno, I don’t get it. We’ve now had an Obama appointee talk openly about a military coup. Some celebs too. I always figured that sort of behavior was for fringe posters on news websites but I guess it’s done and gone mainstream these days.

    Trump has the unhinged faction of the Democrats not just unhinged but the door has now flown completely away. I just hope they stay [relatively] non violent. Their temper tantrums are amusing, the violence some of them seem to have been moved to is not.

      • Yep. Projection. They secretly wanted to do all of that to us — and now that they don’t hold the levers of power, they’re terrified by the (mistaken) thought that we’re just like them.

  4. The mask has dropped. The leftists are insane fanatics who will stop at nothing, including murder, to establish their kinder, gentler world.

    And they wonder why we are armed.

      • they would have to buy a gun first…..

        BUT, this is the crazy left we are talking about, no doubt the cognitive dissonance of exercising you second amendment rights will be beyond their understanding.

    • “The mask has dropped. The leftists are insane fanatics”

      How about just saying “some insane fanatics are leftists”. That would be logically correct.

      There will always be extremists…on EVERY side.

      • Yup, there are plenty of crazies on the right…but…the looney left gets a free pass from the likes of the WaPo, NYT, MSNBC, CNN and the like. A bunch of dudes hang out with wigs and Gadsden Flags and the aforementioned hyperventilate and pretend a civil war is underway. Pinkos and other associated ne’er do wells beat the shit out of people, start fires and the like and the aforementioned use code phrases like “mostly peaceful protests.” I’m not worried about the far right (all nine of them), the far left isn’t being met with the same kind of media resistance and is supported in word and deed by the mainstream left. Just read articles in Slate, HuffPo, and the Nation. It’s a far different dynamic on their side of the political spectrum.

        • Look, most of the Gadsden flag guys wouldn’t hurt a fly and they genuinely care about the Constitution. The problem comes with the divisive rhetoric that pretends that right wing extremism doesn’t exist. One can easily name of a number (which is more than nine, I don’t know how you came up with that number) of right wing terrorists/attacks including: Gordon Kahl, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, The Order/Siglent Brotherhood (synagogue bombers/murderers), Eric Rudolph (Olimpic bomber), David Petersen, Holly Grigsby, the 2012 Sikh temple shooting, the Colorodo Planned Parenthood Shooting, the Charelson church shooting, the 2014 ambush on Vegas police officers, the Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting in 2014, the 2014 Pennsylvania State Police barracks attack, the FEAR group attacks, the Texas airplane suicide attack in 2010, the 2009 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting, the 2009 assassination of George Tiller, the 2009 murders of Raul and Brisenia Flores in Pima County, Arizona, the 2009 murders in Brockton, Massachusetts, the 2008 Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting, and the 2004 bank robbery in Tulsa, Oklahoma are well documented.

          The vast majority of all center-right and even staunch-right folks reject right wing terrorism. Pretending it doesn’t exist and hasn’t been a problem weakens our perspective. Radical right and radical left groups are inherently dangerous and not what our nation is about. Radical violence begets radical violence, people suffer, and we lose our rights as a result. Society doesn’t need to go down that road.

        • You took one long paragrapgh to list all the action of crazy people on the right for the past 20-30 years.

          You’d need a book to do the same on the Left.

        • “You took one long paragrapgh to list all the action of crazy people on the right for the past 20-30 years. You’d need a book to do the same on the Left.”

          Nope, you can sum up left-wing terrorism in approximately the same space, if less. Here goes: “Modern left-wing terrorist groups in the United States developed from remnants of the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers and extremist elements of the Students for a Democratic Society. Between 1973 and 1975, the Symbionese Liberation Army was active, committing bank robberies, two murders, and other acts of violence. Most notably, the group kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst.[10] During the 1980s, both the May 19th Communist Organization (M19CO) and the smaller United Freedom Front were active. After 1985, following the dismantling of both groups, there were no confirmed acts of left-wing terrorism by similar groups. Incidents of left-wing terrorism dropped off at the end of the Cold War, partly due to the loss of support for communism.”

          My fellow Republicans, we have one last chance to set this country on the right track. If we succumb to the politics of destruction, we’re finished in less than two years. We have two years to accomplish that goal. I’m seeing positive steps in the right direction. Let’s reject the hateful rhetoric that distracts us off message, let’s preserve our rights, and above all LETS MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

        • In regards to Mike M…

          Concern Troll: a person who disingenuously expresses concern about an issue with the intention of undermining or derailing genuine discussion.

          He wants to establish a false equivalency between a bunch of criminals and fruitcakes and a well organized and funded movement that has consent and patronage from political and social elites. His intention is to create uncertainty and make people question whether they should be preparing and organizing. The actions of the government and press regarding the Berkeley riots should make it clear we are entering a dangerous period. When a municipal government allows rioters to attack people peacefully attending a political lecture and the media does everything in it’s power to mischaracterize events, it is clear political violence is being normalized. Network, train, and plan.

        • Sprocket : Wrong. You don’t get to define my position when you refuse to deal with the points I actually made, rather than your own inferred bullshit. The fact is that there are more right wing terrorists than left wing terrorists. It’s a problem, and these people will damage the goals of the GOP.

          All these Gadsden flag dopes, the retarded “drunks with guns, you loot we shoot” photographs, the guys deliberately open carrying an AR-15 rifle without considering the bad PR, etc., etc. actively hurt the gun rights cause.
          Unfortunately, our rights are wrapped up in their wrongs. That shit has gotten us nowhere. IDGAF if Trump is president, we’re going to have a hell of a time making progress if we can’t get the PR straight.

        • Hey Mike, go fuck yourself. The most common cause of terrorism in the world is Islam, the second most common is Communism. Conservatives don’t even make the top ten.

        • “Hey Mike, go fuck yourself. The most common cause of terrorism in the world is Islam, the second most common is Communism. Conservatives don’t even make the top ten.”

          Hey pwrserge, YOU go fuck yourself you white nationalist piece of shit.

          This website isn’t StormFront.

        • Keep denying reality Mike. Clearly everyone who calls you on your bullshit is an “anti Semitic white supremacist”… it can’t possibly be that you’re the one who’s full of shit. Run your hippie ass down to San Fran and set some more things on fire. When you’re done with your ten year felony rioting charge you and Milo can compare notes on Big Black Cocks.

      • Mike, I was largely doing shtick (hence the random “9” number) and yes, I understand that the Tea Party isn’t the threat it’s painted out to be, I said as much. And yes, there are radical groups on the right, but at this point in time, given the complicity on the part of the major media outlets I’m more concerned with those on the left. Additionally, since (one can argue) U.S., politically speaking is a center-right nation the radicals on the left will constantly have an enemy to fight. Right wing terror groups (racial groups like KKK, notwithstanding) have had isolated periods of prominence centered on certain issues like abortion and guns. Left-wing radical groups want to overturn everything. There’s a stark difference in my mind. In addition to the organizations and attacks you mentioned I’d like to add the period of left-wing anarchism and Marxist terror attacks, which occurred worldwide (and in the U.S.) from 1880s, through the First Red Scare and into the 1920s. Given the resurgence in Marxism’s popularity I wouldn’t be surprised if history repeats itself. My concern is groups like the “Antifa” which hitherto had been merely a fixture on the European radical scene are going to export their hijinks to the U.S.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing

        • Paul B: I agree with everything you’re saying but this isn’t the 1880s. I’m looking at the big picture here – I want to make sure my (our) gun rights are protected regardless who the president is. That requires doing the hard work of advancing the cause and winning over people who aren’t sure where they stand on the issue. We’re not a “center right” country, we’re a “center divided” country that’s hanging on by a thread. One too many PR screwups will cost us the midterm elections. I’m not comfortable with that. Like you, I don’t want radicals from Europe brought over here. Getting the policy work accomplished means getting the PR stuff right the first time. It’s not so hard to disengage the kooks while advancing the cause of gun rights, secure borders, limited government, and economic growth.
          Click to EditDelete (4 minutes and 33 seconds)

      • Sprocket : Wrong. You don’t get to define my position when you refuse to deal with the points I actually made, rather than your own inferred bullshit. The fact is that there are more right wing terrorists than left wing terrorists. It’s a problem, and these people will damage the goals of the GOP.

        All these Gadsden flag dopes, the retarded “drunks with guns, you loot we shoot” photographs, the guys deliberately open carrying an AR-15 rifle without considering the bad PR, etc., etc. actively hurt the gun rights cause.
        Unfortunately, our rights are wrapped up in their wrongs. That shit has gotten us nowhere. IDGAF if Trump is president, we’re going to have a hell of a time making progress if we can’t get the PR straight.

    • yup!
      sounds familiar though doesn’t it ? fanatics who use violence to accomplish their idea of a peaceful world. It seems to me that these fanatical libs are , at the root, no different from other fanatical groups that will use violence! It doesn’t matter if they are religious fanatics or political fanatics. ANY person who becomes fanatical is a real threat to the country. There is a VERY big difference between being a part of an opposition party or being part of a fanatical group !

  5. Funny how they “Love Trumps Hate”! I wish the would arrest Robert Dinero who has repeatedly said he would punch President Trump in the mouth. Maybe a “Beer summit” is in order!

  6. Hmmm … I wonder how they look upon threats to blow up the White House, and, arguably, attempted incitement of a large fan base to try it.

    Her music was part of my growing up. Kind of sad, to me anyway, that she’s drifted so far from some of her original themes.

    • Yeah, I’ll believe this crap when I see Madonna being perp-walked to jail. As soon as she said that, I wondered why no one went onstage and arrested her.

  7. Oh, did you just threaten POTUS? Here’s a visit from the Secret Service. They’re here to introduce you to a concept called “Personal Responsibility.”

  8. Pertaining to the Village photo – Why would you need to be peering through a scope with a tactical retical when you’re only 15 feet away from the president?

    Pertaining to Mr. Bensen – Dude, either grow a tactical beard and vote Republican or grow out your man-bun and live in your mom’s basement stoned on pot. Then you can bitch about your precious Ms. Clinton not getting to bring her cankles back to the White House.

    Pertaining to Ms. Lowrey – Monica, is that you? I see you still have that blue dress.

  9. The idiots, like the guy in the article, who are publicly screaming and yelling about assassinating Trump can be caught and stopped. Most of those idiots are cowards and incompetents who would be unable to assassinate a dog chained to a post with a shotgun. It is the person who says nothing in public, but quietly plans an attack that should be considered most worrisome.

    At some point Americans who voted for Trump and got him elected have to say, “Enough!”, and stop tolerating this Leftist garbage. I am concerned some persons’ patience and tolerance will exhaust, and terrible things will be done. Some of these Left-tards will be hunted down and taught first hand the meaning of “cruel and unusual punishment”. Vigilantism is a road we should not go down, but it may become an inevitable consequence of the Left’s insane excesses.

      • It won’t be vigilantism; it will be enlistment for organized service in war. Because that is how law-minded individuals ‘riot’ when things get out of hand. Incredibly slow to anger, but the law-abiding persons in this nation historically annihilate their opposition with dedication seen nowhere else once suitably motivated. The leftists are fully aware of this, hence their hatred of (our) guns which they see as offensive symbols of defiance more than practical tools of resistance, and why they restrict their riots & agitation to the most sympathetic/complicit environments they can find. A guy in a balaclava swinging a ‘flag’ attached to baseball bat into someone would result in swift death almost anywhere but Berkeley and a handful of similar cesspools.

        People who value personal responsibility & freedom, federal restraint & the rule of law, *do not* grab flaming pitchforks and head after some perceived enemy. Scoundrels looking to loot or lynch are more in that set.

    • Who are you going to stop tolerating? Your crazy cat lady neighbor who rails against the Republicans? Yeah, because all of her whining put Hillary in the White House…not

  10. I’m glad they’re actually charging people with doing stupid things like calling for assasinations. Welcome to the real world where doing illegal things actually gets you arrested. All of those people arrested at the protest marches were well deserving. Arson, damaging property, assault, battery, and all other things those psycho liberals are doing, it’s about time people started getting arrested. You don’t get to set half of a city on fire and just go home and pretend nothing happened.

    • Local officials are *barely* enforcing the law. Multiple beatings, fires, graffiti, and damage to property in Berkeley, and I think one person was arrested. The mayor, university campus, and AG all openly sympathize with the anarchists and essentially endorsed their actions. They told police to stand down or refuse to interfere, and they obeyed.

      National Guards are likely going to have to be called up to deal with this insurrection before it’s all over, just like in the 60’s with Kent State. I won’t say I desire such a tragedy, but it was the only logical outcome in the face of reckless, large scale lawlessness by naiive students who thought their cause made them invulnerable. By coincidence, that sort of behavior rapidly diminished at protests following the shooting.

  11. Not only is assassination clearly wrong, it’s usually counterproductive, particularly in this case. What’s the point of assassinating somebody who shoots himself in the foot on a daily basis? Trump is his own worst enemy, and he will have nobody to blame but himself when he is kicked out of office in 2020 (or sooner).

  12. Off topic: See that Secret Service guy behind Melania’s upraised hand? I saw a pretty convincing video that supported the proposition that the guy’s right arm, which he seems to be holding in place with his left, isn’t a real arm. In essence, he walks down the street for a good long while holding it in exactly that position, and the fingers on the right hand never move. Makes you wonder what is under that coat, no?

  13. The best thing (outside of the supreme court) that has come out of this election cycle is the curtain being pulled back on just how rigged the system is and just how despotic and unhinged the left and their elitist allies are.

  14. So when are they going to investigate and charge Madonna, Sarah Silverman and other celebrities who are making similar threats?

    • I am wondering the same. the best way to stop the pending insurrection is to count off the heads of the leaders.
      Free speech is one thing, but Madonna’s talk was like yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater: not protected speech.

  15. 2017 will be the new 1968… here we go again! Stay out of the cities. Anyhow, the threat to Trump isn’t very great because of new technology.. they have systems that can detect and stop rifle bullets in mid-air, gas chromatographs for detecting hidden guns and bombs, and even dogs that can find weapons on the quick. Sirhan and Oswald would not have succeeded in today’s tech environment.

  16. Making a tweet or series of tweets or posts etc should is reasonable to warrant an investigation to see if their threats are serious, but to throw someone in prison for doing nothing other than being a jackass or edge master is a step to far.

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