THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE BUNDY GANG
Jan. 7th, 2016 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogThere is trouble in Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
As usual, the online discussion about it is aligning predictably along partisan party lines, and much of it is apocryphal and basically designed to score political points on other issues.
But I’m obligated by the First Amendment to say something about it, so here’s a few thoughts:
1. The #YallQaeda and #VanillaISIS tags are cute, but – in this case – inaccurate. At this stage, I wouldn’t classify the Bundy occupation as domestic terrorism, mainly because it’s aimed directly at the US govt, not civilians. There are no hostages, and no lives have been threatened. You also can’t really call it an insurrection, considering the target is a wildlife refuge, not Congress. The most you can really say about it now is it’s the ultraconservative interpretation of the Occupy Wall Street movement – only dumber, heavily armed, way more paranoid and (very much the opposite of OWS) with the very real possibility that it could escalate into serious deadly violence.
2. That said, the confusion is understandable, because most protesters don’t show up armed, take over a public building and express a willingness to go down firing if the police try to arrest them. The actual presence of weapons makes this more than just a simple free speech exercise, because there is a level of intimidation involved.
This tends to be difficult for hardcore pro-gun enthusiasts to understand, because in their heads, they're thinking strictly in terms of 2A rights and self-defense: “How could openly carrying an assault rifle into a Chipotle’s possibly alarm anyone? I mean, it’s CONSTITUTIONAL!” It doesn’t occur to them that most normal people associate the sight of a deadly weapon in the hands of someone who is not a police officer with imminent danger and death. Similarly, if yr protest requires semi-auto weapons and a loud willingness to use them, it implies that you may not take “no” for an answer, and that the situation could turn ugly and possibly deadly at any moment. You may not mean for it to be threatening, but that’s how most people are going to take it.
3. It doesn’t help that at least some of the Bundy Gang seem to be looking forward to the impending shootout, and are indulging in the conservative wet fantasy that they are standing up against Evil Obama Tyranny, and that nothing would prove their point more than dying in a hail of Obama Tyranny bullets, which would galvanize “patriots” and spark the revolution that would Take America Back from … well, whatever the hell they think Obama is and return it to “real” Americans (i.e. conservatives).
5. Hopefully it won’t come to that. It’s hard to know right now if it will. We’ve sort of been here before, and no one got killed then. But that was because the Feds decided the situation wasn’t worth the risk of a shootout. Maybe this one isn’t either, but you don’t really want to have too many precedents where armed protests like this have zero consequences, either. Also, the outcome in Oregon may depend on how many other “patriots” turn up to support the Bundy Gang, how crazy some of them are, and whether the Bundys have the ability to keep them under control. In situations like this, it only takes one idiot to start a gunfight.
6. As for the people complaining that the cops haven’t already gunned them down the same way they gun down (say) unarmed black people: it’s not a good comparison, and it also misses the point – are you really arguing that if the police are going to be trigger-happy with unarmed black kids, they should have the common decency to shoot the Bundy Gang dead with no conversation?
7. That tweet from Ammon Bundy comparing himself to Rosa Parks? It’s a hoax.
8. BTW, none of this is intended to defend the Bundy Gang, or to excuse whatever racist batshit conspiracy theories some or all of them happen to believe. I just prefer to criticize their actions based on reality rather than biased and apocryphal memes and hashtags.
Home on the range,
This is dF
As usual, the online discussion about it is aligning predictably along partisan party lines, and much of it is apocryphal and basically designed to score political points on other issues.
But I’m obligated by the First Amendment to say something about it, so here’s a few thoughts:
1. The #YallQaeda and #VanillaISIS tags are cute, but – in this case – inaccurate. At this stage, I wouldn’t classify the Bundy occupation as domestic terrorism, mainly because it’s aimed directly at the US govt, not civilians. There are no hostages, and no lives have been threatened. You also can’t really call it an insurrection, considering the target is a wildlife refuge, not Congress. The most you can really say about it now is it’s the ultraconservative interpretation of the Occupy Wall Street movement – only dumber, heavily armed, way more paranoid and (very much the opposite of OWS) with the very real possibility that it could escalate into serious deadly violence.
2. That said, the confusion is understandable, because most protesters don’t show up armed, take over a public building and express a willingness to go down firing if the police try to arrest them. The actual presence of weapons makes this more than just a simple free speech exercise, because there is a level of intimidation involved.
This tends to be difficult for hardcore pro-gun enthusiasts to understand, because in their heads, they're thinking strictly in terms of 2A rights and self-defense: “How could openly carrying an assault rifle into a Chipotle’s possibly alarm anyone? I mean, it’s CONSTITUTIONAL!” It doesn’t occur to them that most normal people associate the sight of a deadly weapon in the hands of someone who is not a police officer with imminent danger and death. Similarly, if yr protest requires semi-auto weapons and a loud willingness to use them, it implies that you may not take “no” for an answer, and that the situation could turn ugly and possibly deadly at any moment. You may not mean for it to be threatening, but that’s how most people are going to take it.
3. It doesn’t help that at least some of the Bundy Gang seem to be looking forward to the impending shootout, and are indulging in the conservative wet fantasy that they are standing up against Evil Obama Tyranny, and that nothing would prove their point more than dying in a hail of Obama Tyranny bullets, which would galvanize “patriots” and spark the revolution that would Take America Back from … well, whatever the hell they think Obama is and return it to “real” Americans (i.e. conservatives).
5. Hopefully it won’t come to that. It’s hard to know right now if it will. We’ve sort of been here before, and no one got killed then. But that was because the Feds decided the situation wasn’t worth the risk of a shootout. Maybe this one isn’t either, but you don’t really want to have too many precedents where armed protests like this have zero consequences, either. Also, the outcome in Oregon may depend on how many other “patriots” turn up to support the Bundy Gang, how crazy some of them are, and whether the Bundys have the ability to keep them under control. In situations like this, it only takes one idiot to start a gunfight.
6. As for the people complaining that the cops haven’t already gunned them down the same way they gun down (say) unarmed black people: it’s not a good comparison, and it also misses the point – are you really arguing that if the police are going to be trigger-happy with unarmed black kids, they should have the common decency to shoot the Bundy Gang dead with no conversation?
7. That tweet from Ammon Bundy comparing himself to Rosa Parks? It’s a hoax.
8. BTW, none of this is intended to defend the Bundy Gang, or to excuse whatever racist batshit conspiracy theories some or all of them happen to believe. I just prefer to criticize their actions based on reality rather than biased and apocryphal memes and hashtags.
Home on the range,
This is dF
