Even if you like guns, Utah Gun Exchange’s tactics against March for Our Lives is a poor strategy
Quick, someone call the waaaambulance . . .
As my colleague Taylor Anderson reported this week, the Utah Gun Exchange has taken to following the survivors of the Parkland, Fla., shooting around the country in their armored pretend Army vehicle to make the pro-gun case at various March for Our Lives events.
It has been provocative, to be sure. In New York, the owner of the vehicle, Bryan Melchior, was arrested because the turret-mounted gun on top of their black vehicle wasn’t clearly a replica, as required by city ordinance.
On Wednesday, the Larry H. Miller Group’s Megaplex Theatres declined to host a town hall planned in Utah this Saturday, concerned about a potential protest.
Report: State gun, mental laws couldn’t stop Parkland massacre
No, but reporting the shooter and prosecuting him for his prior crimes might have . . .
“So many people think the Baker Act is a magic wand — that the Baker Act cures and fixes all. The Baker Act doesn’t,” said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the commission’s chairman. “The Baker Act is a temporary custody status for assessment. Rarely does the Baker Act result in any treatment. People think that if Cruz had been Baker Acted that this wouldn’t have happened. That is flat-out erroneous.”
Under the Baker Act, Florida can involuntarily commit a person for a mental health evaluation for up to 72 hours — about 192,000 such commitments were made last year, about one for every 100 Florida residents.
It can be implemented if a police officer, judge, doctor or mental health official believes the person is mentally ill and is a near-term danger to themselves or others. Many are released within hours and anyone detained under the act must be released within three days unless they volunteer for treatment or a judge agrees the person needs to be committed.
Being evaluated under the Baker Act or volunteering for commitment does not make a person ineligible to buy or own a gun. School and law enforcement officials considered detaining Cruz under the Baker Act in 2016, but did not.
Woman surrounded by wolves in Central Washington rescued from tree
It should have been a defensive gun use . . .
Okanogan County deputies were told if they arrived on the scene and the wolves were still surrounding the woman they were to shoot the wolves on sight, authorities said.
The Department of Natural Resources was then notified and they said they would be sending a helicopter to the woman’s location. When the helicopter arrived, the wolves were still there but the helicopter was able to land and rescue the student.
Lake Mary man was killed by a stray bullet — all because of a fight he had no part in
The shooter, Brown, was carrying illegally and had opened fire on Vega-Rosado who shot and killed him . . .
Daniel Strada was an inspirational fitness buff who made goofy YouTube videos and wrapped his mother in giant bear hugs.
Early Sunday morning, the Lake Mary man was hit in the eye and killed by a stray bullet — the victim of a fight that never involved him.
Strada was standing outside of Liam Fitzpatrick’s Irish Restaurant in the Colonial Town Park shopping center when Victor Emanuel Brown and Jorge Vega-Rosado got into a fight across the parking lot. Deputies say Brown pulled out a gun and fired a shot.
The bullet missed its target and hit Strada, who was standing nearly the length of a football field away.
Baltimore police stopped noticing crime after Freddie Gray’s death. A wave of killings followed.
When you punish the police worse than you treat the murdering thugs on the street, the cops notice and adjust their behavior accordingly . . .
Just before a wave of violence turned Baltimore into the nation’s deadliest big city, a curious thing happened to its police force: officers suddenly seemed to stop noticing crime.
Police officers reported seeing fewer drug dealers on street corners. They encountered fewer people who had open arrest warrants.
Police questioned fewer people on the street. They stopped fewer cars.
In the space of just a few days in spring 2015 – as Baltimore faced a wave of rioting after Freddie Gray, a black man, died from injuries he suffered in the back of a police van – officers in nearly every part of the city appeared to turn a blind eye to everyday violations. They still answered calls for help. But the number of potential violations they reported seeing themselves dropped by nearly half. It has largely stayed that way ever since.
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Friend of TTAG Todd Vandermyde used to represent the NRA in the Land o’ Lincoln. Now he’s fronting for the Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois, pushing back against gun dealer licensing and the naked anti-gun agitprop spouted by South Side media whore, Fr. Michael Pfleger. Be sure to take your blood pressure meds before viewing this performance.
Or better yet…drinking game! Take a sip every time the good Father spouts an bold face lie. Just be sure you have a designated driver…you’ll need one.
Baltimore is a perfect academic exercise in the failures of liberalism, and the exact reason WHY we need ARs with 30 round mags.
“Those who wish to destroy, will be given room to destroy.”- Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlins-Blake, the night before the city burned.
Oh please, Baltimore is the way it is because it is filled with and run by sub 85iq blacks. Liberals might be awful but only blacks can turn a thriving, livable city into an un-inhabitable shit hole, see Birmingham, Detroit, Newark, New Orleans, etc…….
Puerto Rico is 80+% white. So is Venezuela. Russia is 100% Caucasian. That’s where the Caucasus Mountains are. Beirut and Iran are run by white folk
You’re a racist idiot who should suck start a Peterbilt.
Wow, Rockwell. Your first comment calling Button Gwinnett names was so foul it ended up in the filter where I found it… so you reworded it just enough to slip through. Then I look at your post history to find it’s virtually all racist and obnoxious.
You are the textbook example of the person we don’t need here. Literally can’t leave a comment without an insult or a racial slur. Have some time out.
i like how Gwinnett crossed the line … but the guy dropping racism calling himself GEORGE ROCKWELL gets a pass.
*shakes head sadly*
Rockwell you’re flat out ignorant. Stupidity has nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with political affiliation. The uneducated and brainwashed become liberals. Or, like you, they embrace the Real Democratic Party. The one that wants to keep blacks on the welfare plantation. And keep illegals coming in for slave labor. You’re a statist, and a leftist. And you don’t even realize it.
Baltimore police stopped noticing crime after Freddie Gray’s death.
…under direct orders from the Mayor.
Voters who elected her got exactly what they deserved.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/29/source-baltimore-mayor-ordered-police-to-stand-down.html
Coming from a family of cops and service people
I have always thought that when the ‘city’ of the mayor tosses the dept under the bus
the dept should ‘toss’ the city under the bus for a week or so of NOT enforcing any laws and see how fast they call for ya then!
screw us cops—we can screw you too!
Ha! As if the police make people safer. They exist to collect taxes and clean up after the crimes occurred.
Not a new concept, bobo.
It’s called Blue Flu when they all call in sick and let the people do without their services for a while.
I am at the “March for Our Lives” Parkland student events right now. Even though you deride UGH, they have increased awareness of this event. As a teacher I am glad to have this firsthand opportunity to observe.
My daughter is also here asking me, who is paying for this? There is no question that this is not student led.
Second, she quesowhu about 1/6 of the audience is positioned behind a bunch of view blocking cameras.
TTAG isn’t deriding UGE, they quoted the St Louis Tribune’s derision and made one comment about the Trib: Quick, someone call the waaaambulance . . .
Sorry, I see that now. Please understand that I am typing this on a phone as I listen to total nonsense. Did you know that 90 percent of people who attempt suicide by means other than firearms do not die and do not attempt suicide in the future. I will tell you why I am not aware of this fact. Because it isn’t true.
Nonsense like that is getting prolonged ovations. Pro-fact voices are being shouted down. This is an interesting experience.
Most people who “attempt” suicide aren’t really looking to end it all- just get trying to attention. That’s the hard truth of the matter.
You misunderstood the post. We weren’t criticizing UGH. They have a right to counter protest.
who is paying for this?
Largely financed by America hating Tom Fing Steyer.
You can bet there is significant about of George Soros funding finding its way in.
The people who hate government, Libertarians Liberals and the Left, got what they wanted in Baltimore. Unfortunately most of the ( white) three L’s don’t live in Baltimore.
Sorry, the fault is with the overpaid government employees who are refusing to do the job they are quite well paid to do. If cops don’t want to do their jobs, then we should start cutting pay, ending benefits and making sure they can’t touch one dime of pension until they turn 72.
Remember, this nation was founded by men who smuggled drugs and guns, evaded taxes, rioted and shot cops.
Sorry Chris, but you have to stop superimposing your world view on to other people. You’re assuming that the people of Baltimore want their cops to do police work and that the cops aren’t doing what they are paid to do. You may pay taxes which go to YOUR police department, vote for YOUR local representatives, petition YOUR local government, and express YOUR expectations of what YOUR police department and YOUR police officers do. But, unless YOU’RE from Baltimore, your views are a moot point. The Baltimore Mayor, the Baltimore DA, and the Baltimore Chief of Police made it clear what is expected of their police officers, and the police officers are fulfilling their commander’s intent. Baltimore voters may disagree, but that is between them, their tax dollars, and their local government.
None of the three you named hate the government.
“Progressives” got what they “wanted” in Baltmore.
Stop comparing libertarians to liberals, it’s totally ignorant. True libertarians are pro-Constitution .
Don’t confuse Libertarians with libertarians. LIbertarians picked an antigun VP nominee, and the Presidential nominee wasn’t a friend of guns either. Now, they seem to be more pro marijuana, open borders socialists than promoting liberty and rights in all areas, including property rights.
All political parties have those within that do not support all of their party’s platforms – thank God for this. There are many in the Democratic party that fully support the 2nd amendment, they stay in their party because they may support other platforms that other parties are against.
I lean Libertarian – I am for personal freedoms, I am fiscally conservative and I am for a defensive military – I am also fiercely pro 2nd. You may feel different – that is great, we live in a country where we are free to feel and vote for the things we think are best, even if we want socialism or a nationalism akin to nazism. I don’t like it, but I have to support your right to your position.
Anymouse
Legal marijuana intoxication and William Weld are just two of many reasons why I put Libertarians Liberals and the Left, together in the same group. Libertarians care more about “putting things into their bodies” than putting a gun into their hands.
The marijuana intoxication legalization leadership was and still is anti second amendment. I grew up in California. Those people have not changed.
@Anymouse I thought I was the only one who noticed that the Potheads party don’t care about guns. (I had thought Gary Johnson was a democrat plant set up to siphon votes away from the GOP anyway.)
I used to call my self a Libertarian. Now I like being a Constitutional Originalist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism
LIbertarians picked an antigun VP nominee, and the Presidential nominee wasn’t a friend of guns either. Now, they seem to be more pro marijuana, open borders socialists than promoting liberty and rights in all areas, including property rights.
I left the Libertarian Party. It is now leftist organization that is just going to siphon off votes from Republicans.
Weld professes a change to a pro-gun stance. In that, he is not different than the former gun control buff Trump. The only difference is that Trump has had an opportunity to show if he has really changed. It seems the results have been mixed at best, court nominations seem to be the only evidence he is sincere and the those appointees could well have been chosen for other reasons.
Smoking pot is hardly dumber than spending your time praying to an invisible magical creature that is so powerful that no-one can produce one shred of evidence that it exists. Pot smokers are clearly better at separating reality from fantasy than the religious (I realize that the groups overlap, this is a generalization). No, I did not and do not vote for the Libertarian Party, I just recognize that the religious right (and left) are deliberately self deluded and logically unreliable. The relevance here is that most “conservatives” are steeped in that superstition called religion.
Got it Vic, you worship yourself. What does that have to do with firearms?
Libertarians are not pro Constitution. Some are pro Articles of Confederation but most are anarcho-Capitalists.
The Libertarian Party is not even that.
Full blown Leftist organization.
Oh I don’t know, I rather like the idea of going around in an armored vehicle just to troll the little bastards and counter their lies with facts.
Strange about the wolves. The woman had to have been doing something to provoke them. Wolves don’t just attack people for no reason.
Really sucks that the guy was killed by a stray bullet. At least the shooter was caught, but that’s unlikely to be any consolation to his friends and family.
OK, let’s take care of the wolf myth, right now.
Wolves are extremely intelligent, powerful, pack-hunting carnivores; A pack can bring down and kill an adult moose or elk, and dispose of it in mere days. They will, and do, prey upon human beings if the opportunity presents and if they are feeling a mite puckish, which is all of the time.
Alaska’s most recent recorded wolf kill of a human being was in 2010; Her name was Candace Berner, her sole provocation was to be jogging alone, and the wolves did not merely chase her down and kill her, they ate her.
History is full of reports of human predation by wolves; They are not stories to scare the kiddies with, but warnings.
You are absolutely correct, it’s no different than when the shark apologists explain that the shark mistook their victim for a seal. The peaceful kingdom is a myth and we just another meal to much of it.
“Strange about the wolves. The woman had to have been doing something to provoke them. Wolves don’t just attack people for no reason.”
Are you telling me that “Grey” was fiction???
Arg…I watched a few seconds of Todd messing with the bad Fadda’. I wanted to reach through the TV and strangle a disgusting pedophile. This creapy catholic threatened to murder everone at Chuck’s Gunshop. Oh and Todd really needs to work on his appearance. He comes across as an angry used car salesman…
Selling cars is what he does on the side.
There ya’ go!😏
This is bogus. Those cops in Baltimore tortured a guy to death and they need to be held accountable. That’s not to say that they shouldn’t arrest criminals, it’s important to have cops doing their job, but part of that is not committing crimes themselves. There has to be a middle ground between having cops who stand down when stuff is going down, and having criminals for cops. Everyone either hates the cops or licks their boots, and neither is right.
“Those cops in Baltimore tortured a guy to death and they need to be held accountable.”
If you’re talking about Freddie Gray, you have no idea what the hell you’re talking about and you must have paid about as much attention to the evidence as Good Morning America. If you’re talking about someone else… who is it?
Most people are neutral towards cops with the vocal minority advocates/detractors in the wings. You watch too much TV news or talk shows or something Dude. Even the Obama/Lynch Justice Department said those cops didn’t cause or do anything which contributed to Grey’s death. Obama and Lynch themselves had no problem calling the cops stupid racist murderers and fanning the flames that destroyed Baltimore, but the facts never seemed to support their claims when it was actually investigated….. sounds a lot like anti-gun logic or the “Trump-Russia axis of evil”; lets make a claim first, then make the “evidence” later. If there is no evidence, then let’s just lie and scream crazy crap really really loud.
I like your sentiment, but Freddie Gray was not tortured to death. Not by a long shot.
No… they roughed up a drug slinging lowlife with a rap sheet the size of a novel. I have exactly zero problems with career criminals getting killed by cops.
“torture” being whatever a prog says it is and which suits his political needs. Today.
If does not leave permanent physical injury (not repairable) then it’s not torture.
Flailing around in the back of a van is NOT torture.
I was tortured. It’s haunted me for 20 years now. Only the lightest scars but not all torture leaves a mark, especially when your captors know what they’re doing.
That being said I wholeheartedly agree that what befell Mr. Gray was not torture.
The wolves in that part of Washington state are NOT descendants of introduced wolves but rather natural migration from the North Cascades. There have already been people blaming the feds but this is one case where the feds are innocent. Blame nature for this one. OK, the feds protect them but they didn’t put them there.
In New York, the owner of the vehicle, Bryan Melchior, was arrested because the turret-mounted gun on top of their black vehicle wasn’t clearly a replica, as required by city ordinance.
…and we all know this was not the real reason he was arrested.
balti-mo done be gittin’ what de may-whore say
“Lake Mary man was killed by a stray bullet — all because of a fight he had no part in
The shooter, Brown, was carrying illegally and had opened fire on Vega-Rosado who shot and killed him . . .”
Sounds like when Proconsul Cuomo-the-Younger got full of outrage-y outrage when one of his entourage got hit by a stray … got too close to a turf-war free-fire zone for a moment there.
Surprising no one, The NY District’s Hereditary Overlord was deeply concerned for his minion, and used the incident to reiterate We Need to Ban All the Thing … Harder!
His & his enablers’ silence on how the SAFE act didn’t stop this was epic. Nearly as epic as their silence about the people who live, defenseless, in free-fire zones all the time, vs. only when they’re on a photo-op field trip to show they “care.”