This Stephen Colbert video features Doug Varrieur, a rogue homeowner in Big Pine Key, Florida, whose backyard target practice range is tormenting neighbors. Every day,
neighbors endure the discharge of firearms - living in fear of stray bullets
and in fear for their lives. Neighbors consider him “inconsiderate, obnoxious, a wacko” and a menace to the neighborhood.
When asked about the safety of local children or boaters, “I don’t
care,” replies the imperturbable Doug Varrieur.
Are there are no laws to prevent Rambo wannabes from
menacing our neighborhoods? Doug Varrieur may challenge anyone to stop him, but he
should think again. Most
municipalities have "anti-menacing laws" defined as:
‘A crime governed by local or state laws, which vary by region, but typically involve displaying a weapon or a course of conduct that intentionally places another person in reasonable fear of physical injury or death.’
All
rights have limits. Free speech does not confer a right to defame a
neighbor or broadcast crazy rants at 100 decibels in the middle of the
night. There are laws that cover slander and disturbing the peace.
Property rights do not mean you can operate a strip joint in a residential
neighborhood or within proximity to schools or houses of worship. Zoning
laws prevent rogue operators from despoiling neighborhoods.
Freedom without responsibility is not freedom, and rights without reasonable limits are not rights when any self-styled fanatic turns himself into a public nuisance.
When the
NRA pushes gun rights to this extreme, what recourse do you have? Call
law enforcement and invoke the laws of your municipality. You can also vote out lawmakers on the NRA dole who
support unconscionably bad bills that turn formerly safe and peaceful
communities into a torment. Here is an example of extremism gone too far. Enough is enough!
Menacing, threatening - making "terroristic threats" There are many such laws and in Florida it's a felony to use a gun to threaten or intimidate, even in response to someone threatening you. Saying "go away, I have a gun" is a crime.
ReplyDeleteI would think showing up at a political rally with guns and saying "next time they'll be loaded" would meet several tests of menacing and threatening and even stalking, but nobody seems to do anything about it. Republicans are afraid to buck the party and Democrats seem not to want to take time out from the standard arguments about gun control
Of course this is not about gun control, it's about threats of armed insurrection. They're looking forward to armed revolution and some are not too shy to admit it. The 'preppers' amd militiamen and "sovereign citizens" are dreaming of the end of government and a Mad Max world where only they will survive, each man his own warlord.
Sooner or later one of these bozos will pull a trigger and I suspect nothing much will be done even though it may easily be seen as the first shot in a new civil war. Sooner or later one armed bozo will see another armed bozo as a threat.
Make no mistake, it's an attempted overthrow of law and order and the government itself. If we can gun down unarmed kids carrying flowers and call it an armed insurrection by killer hippies, why can't we send in the National Guard when a bunch of middle aged failures and losers show up waving guns at public events?
It's unconscionable to condone this sedition, it but the NRA simply cares - and has affirmed that it cares - only about "winning" Winning in this case is to eliminate any gun regulation whatever and like the book of Judges says: In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. His own stupid, deluded, angry, bigoted, greedy, hate filled, anarchistic and maniacal eyes.
Best explanation ever on the twisted fantasy world of these gun nuts.
ReplyDelete