These freaking Open Carry Texas loons need to be picked up off the streets and forcibly shipped to Afghanistan.
Now, please.
On Memorial Day this week, a former Marine in Texas named James got a couple calls from friends who'd spotted an unusual gathering in downtown Fort Worth: Roughly a dozen people, mostly men, were hanging out in the middle of the city's cultural district, armed with semi-automatic rifles. James quickly knew what his friends were describing, having recently encountered an open-carry demonstration himself in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. An independent TV commercial producer who sometimes films live events, James headed downtown with his camera to get some footage.
What he saw there struck him as especially provocative. Not only had the open-carry activists come to a typically relaxed, family friendly part of town, they were displaying intimidating firearms just three days after a major gun massacre in southern California. What he didn't anticipate was that they would soon be pursuing him for several city blocks with cameras of their own, harassing him and later posting the footage online, where they would also level homophobic slurs and violent threats against him.
So these Open Carry pantstains are now threatening
Marines that don't sufficiently bow to their metal manhood. That is a new level of nuts.
In a video obtained by Mother Jones that was posted online later that day by one of the activists, the group can be seen pursuing and harassing James through downtown Fort Worth. "I'm following this guy around," declares one of them, setting off after him with his weapon slung across his back. He and others stay right behind James for several city blocks, following him through traffic and taunting him along the way.
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That right there sounds like a good way to get shot by a Good Guy With a Gun. If you saw a gaggle of angry guys with rifles following somebody around yelling at him, that does seem the kind of thing that would set a Good Guy With a Gun off.
Then the crowd got video of his car and license plate and posted it online, which is the precise thing they were so very upset with James here but when they do it they're patriots.
"That guy obviously thinks he's a badass talking shit to armed citizens," one gun activist said. "When [the shit hits the fan] I'll be happy to smash assholes like him."
Aaaaaah. And there we get to the heart of things. When
the shit hits the fan, these Open Carry fellows are just waiting to "smash" their enemies. So what we have here is a fellow who is pissed off that James did not sufficiently cower in the presence of his metal death penis, a person who likes being the aggressor very much, to the point of making it a day's hobby,
and who clearly believes in the conspiracy theory that shit will be hitting the fan in America, shit that requires good patriots like him to start killing the people he doesn't like.
That right there is an unstable fellow. That is the next American murderer waiting for his moment to shine. That is the kind of person who should not be allowed anywhere near a gun at all, thank you very much, and when this person is walking around city streets with his one or more loaded rifles, because patriotism, this is the kind of person who does indeed present a clear and present threat.
This is an armed intimidation campaign staffed by crazy people. It's the Cliven Bundy Ranch traveling road show.