winning friends and influencing people
Open Carry Tarrant County continues to beclown itself:
“We should demanding these people give us our rights back or it’s punishable by death. Treason. Do you understand how serious this is Texas?” Watkins asks. “This is treason against the American people. You don’t sell my right back to me. You’re going to find trouble.”
Get off my team, idiot.
February 4th, 2015 at 7:43 pm
Parse it out; 18 USC 242 says the same thing, and it’s federal law. You may not like the way they said it, or the context, but they said the same thing. That is, but for the word “treason”, which they don’t seem to quite fully understand. Close enough for rock and roll though.
I’ll give them an A for spirit and a C minus for tact. Not that the other side ever cares much about tact, but we probably should, where it is called for, though I question whether tact, per se, is called for when one’s enumerated rights are being willfully violated. That’s a sort of a Jesus thing, wherein he was “tactful” while being tortured and killed as an innocent man.
February 4th, 2015 at 9:42 pm
Maybe I am misreading, but I do not understand the objection to this.
February 4th, 2015 at 11:13 pm
… but I do not understand the objection to this.
Speaking only to the political objection, there is an on-going effort in Texas politics over many years now to work the state’s legislative process so as to incrementally enact modest changes in existing Texas statutes toward an (often unremarked upon) end goal of some form of Open/Constitutional Carry of modern sidearms. Groups like Watkins’ Open Carry Tarrant County making demands such as those noted above result in much more effective resistance to such incremental changes. Watkins and his group have the habit of hijacking public debate on Open Carry generally by their publicity-seeking antics and crude behavior.
Would that someone would follow through on the “Jesus thing” for Watkins and his coterie; you takes your entertainment where you find it.
February 4th, 2015 at 11:41 pm
“…way they said it, or the context…”
Which is the only thing that is noticed and remembered, the message is lost in the storm of stupid. These idiots are either simple attention whores or complex double agents, either way they are hurting the cause and undoing a lot of hard work and advancement achieved by the real rights activists.
February 5th, 2015 at 12:17 am
Sigh,
OK look, I get it, you’re not one of them. Its OK, but its getting old.
Ya know what I disdain more than hipsters? People who define themselves by who they aren’t, and Unc, you do FAR too much of that these days. The “look at me I am so hip because I am not that “crazy” guy. Sadly idiots tend to think themselves wise.
It reminds me of something my wife once said:
In anger she once said,”you’re stupid”
To that I replied, “ok lets walk this through, stupidity is something that one is born with yes? As is something they did not have a choice in. You however married a stupid man, what does that make you?”
You are linking an article about an “idiot” who is obviously wanting to get attention, something that you are helping him with….
….so what does that make you?
Is this guy a loon? yeah … and so was malcolm X… he made the rev seem almost palatable.
Is he right? …. yeah actually he is.
Is he tactful, no… but the truth rarely is.
February 5th, 2015 at 1:09 am
Uncle, he was a not one of them before it was cool.
February 5th, 2015 at 2:50 am
I think he would be absolutely shocked to find out you considered him a member of Team FUDD!!!
February 5th, 2015 at 8:05 am
If he had the friends to see his vision through, he would get his way. In this case, the medium is the message.
February 5th, 2015 at 12:19 pm
You have to call out the idiots on your side lest you get painted with the same brush.
Morons like this guy set our side back. Telling people “not doing X is treason, and the penalty for that is death” makes you and everybody like you look like a psycho. He’s playing to the very worst stereotype of the unstable gun owner. Not one legislator who hears this idiot spout off is going to then think “You know, I think the best course of action is to allow this guy to carry a firearm.” No, it’s going to get them thinking that maybe it might be good to further restrict carry of all kinds.
No, he’s not a well meaning person using hyperbole. No, he’s not someone fighting alongside those trying to do useful things. He’s a liability to those who would loosen restrictions. Anything that gets accomplished is going to be in spite of him because others have to expend a great deal of effort to repair the damage he does.
I don’t have a problem with Uncle calling these jerks out. If more of us did that we’d have fewer of them and maybe we’d have less of the unstable psycho stereotype this jackass seems intent on creating.
February 5th, 2015 at 1:43 pm
He’s Fred Phelps for OC. See Fred Phelps winning _any_ argument? See Fred Phelps advancing his own cause at all?
Nope, this guy is about “look at me” and getting idiotic rubes to send him money, full stop.
February 5th, 2015 at 2:10 pm
I live about 45 miles from these jerks and agree with Uncle. We (Texas) had a good chance of passing an open carry bill for those with a CHL before these people came along. They have so alienated the legislature that I wouldn’t be surprised if a bill is passed outlawing open carry of ALL firearms in Texas. Thanks a lot you turkeys!
Note that the open carry of long guns in Texas was usually assumed to be the rancher that had a gun rack in his pickup truck so he could shoot coyotes or hunt quail on his property as needed. I’ve lived in Texas for 70 years and never saw anyone try to make a point by carrying a long gun into a store until these jerks came along.
There are quite a few people who do not approve of guns but it is not a big thing in their life since your ownership of a gun does not affect them directly. When you start shoving your guns in their face it does begin to affect them directly and they become more politically aggressive for the removal of said guns from their face by outlawing your carrying of said guns. Why can’t you Open Carry Tarrant County people understand this?
February 5th, 2015 at 2:25 pm
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
There’s no such crime as “treason against the people”.
Well, not in America.
February 5th, 2015 at 3:53 pm
Are we sure that they aren’t actually a false flag gun control group? They’ve done more damage than anything put out by the Demanding Mommies.
February 5th, 2015 at 5:07 pm
No. No, not false flag. Stop.
Just because they’re damaging our cause doesn’t mean they’re funded by Bloomberg or the others. Heck, they’re actually EFFECTIVE at creating more gun control- that’s more than one can say for the gun control groups.
Fact is, we have lunatics on our side too. Let’s not join them through conspiracy theories. Let’s instead call them out and shun them. Maybe they’ll get the point and go away then.
February 5th, 2015 at 5:56 pm
You have to admit that we’ve become pretty pussified in our “civilized behavior”. We revolted against British rule for less than the natural right to self-defense. A LOT of folks who comment here have, at one time or another in the past, made some pretty similar comments when their rights are being threatened.
February 5th, 2015 at 7:16 pm
In my 56 year lifetime, I don’t recall the American left ever being terribly worried about alienating the legislators.
I heard the cry; “You just don’t understand; they were killing us in the media!” from 20 years ago, from a name in the pro gun movement you’ve all heard of.
Now I don’t know, but it seems we are sometimes too worried about “the media”.
I do understand both side of this issue, but there is a balance, somewhere, (and it’s probably different in every situation) between being too obnoxious and not being heard at all because you’re so bland. Without “getting attention” no one hears you, though of course the attention has to be gotten in the right ways, for the right reasons.
I was attending a rally for a political campaign a while back, and the manager of a business we were next to called the cops, trying to get us evicted. First thing we knew the cops were there telling us to disperse. I was all for standing our ground and being arrested if necessary, and I made that clear to all present (you should have seen the look of cold fear on several faces) but the candidate wouldn’t have it. It was, technically, public property and we had every right to be there, and that business manager was just being a dick. He didn’t own the ground we were on and we weren’t hindering his business. The free publicity from the arrests (or threatened arrests – I don’t think they’d had gone through with it) could have really launched the guy’s campaign if he knew how to play it, but he played the squishy, nice, go-along-to-get-along-Republican-who’s-afraid-of-his-own-shadow and got nowhere. I consider it a lost opportunity. I suppose he deserved to lose. So who’s the dumbass in that situation? I can’t know for sure, but I do know there is a proper balance.
February 6th, 2015 at 2:23 am
Think of it like this: if an action or behavior sends *my* 60 year old ass into orange (think a couple wild-looking loons marching into Starbucks with front-slung AK’s), imagine the effect on the blue people.
February 6th, 2015 at 3:14 am
Martyrdom gives SOMEONE the warm fuzzies. Never the martyr, though…
February 6th, 2015 at 4:30 pm
To all of those that condone that “not on my team” idiolatry (sp? because its not actually even a word)
I have always found it slightly enraging to see the foolish continue to be foolish.
Out of one side of your heads you scream “why can’t we win the way liberals do” and then on the other side of your head you scream “this guy is not at conservative / normal / L33T as me.”
This inherent arrogance and silly myopia is WHY you can’t win. You’re so busy living on your self built pedestal that you can’t seem to all understand that movement happen in groups, groups of all kinds.
Liberals have learned long ago the secret to wining in masses:
1) Ignore your fringe, but do not disenfranchise them. (read faragon, team sharon, your local commie)
2) Never apologize but never accept, employ a healthy amount of cognitive dissidence.
3) If all else fails, give lame excuse for them and then focus on your opponents less savory folks. (e.i. “well sure he is a bit wacky but his hearts in the right place and besides look at that guy you have on your side who is a criminal, at least this guy isn’t a felon”)
4) Push the mainstream message, drive the more extreme agenda…. (i.e. “we don’t want to ban guns we just want to ban your guns” “we don’t want to regulate the internet, we just want to make sure that your internet is free of evil with “”neutrality”” then turn around and ban guns and regulate the internet like its a “wireless service”… read tax the hell out of it and sell blocks of near limitless ipv6 space for billions
If you want to win, play by the same rules. This isn’t a friendly competition, these folks are the KKK of gun rights, THEY WILL put a burning cross in your front yard…. and by burning cross i mean SWAT teams that will come and shoot your dog because you new rifle has heatshield wrapped around the barrel.
February 6th, 2015 at 10:48 pm
“je suis OCTC”, oui Justaguy?
February 8th, 2015 at 4:47 pm
Justaguy wins the thread.