Me, Too

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I've often said that I'm a second amendment supporter, but that I leave the heavy blogging in that arena to others. I don't follow the relevant news sources closely enough, and one thing I refuse to do is become a Me, Too gunblogger - linking to the news others have worked to cover, or waxing eloquent on a subject well after others who do it better have already done so. In my mind, what I wanna do here is to post something a little different than the mainstream. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.

But, this issue today is important. Yeah, I'm late to the party, so what. For the minority who don't know what I'm talking about, the blogger Travis Corcoran who writes (or wrote, as the case may be now) Dispatches from TJICistan. He is a resident of Massachusetts, and has to deal with the draconian firearm laws there. The powers that be decided they didn't like what he wrote, so he can no longer possess any firearms.

ARLINGTON (CBS) – A blog threatening members of Congress in the wake of the Tucson, Arizona shooting has prompted Arlington police to temporarily suspend the firearms license of an Arlington man.
It was the headline “1 down and 534 to go” that caught the attention. “One” refers to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in the rampage, while 534 refers to the other members of the U.S. House and Senate.

Police are investigating the “suitability” of 39-year-old Travis Corcoran to have a firearms license.

I give Borepatch the floor:

Let's ignore for the moment how many people were investigated for making similar comments about George W. Bush. Let's look at the "logic" being exercised by the Arlington Po-Po, shall we?

They claim that Corcoran is so dangerous that, while he has done nothing more than put up a blog post, he must be restrained from possessing firearms. However, it appears that it's not worth it for the police to follow him, or stake out his place, or arrest him.

Huh?

Look, guys, if you think that his speech rises to the level of an actual threat of specific harm to specific persons, he should be in jail. If you're not sure, then do the leg work to establish whether it is or not.

So, what do we know about the Arlington Police Department? We know that they're lazy - nobody assigned to watch over this "dangerous" suspect. We know that they're biased - Arlington is a hotbed of George W. Bush hatred, and the last decade would offer a wealth of examples of similar or worse speech, none of which was investigated.

And we know that they're idiots. It's not like there isn't a ton of case law on how the First Amendment applies to threats of political violence. Arlington will lose this, if it ever gets to trial. Post Heller and McDonald, they'll lose even worse. Idiots.

But this is, as JayG points out, an attack not only on the First Amendment, but on the Second as well. An attack of this sort - groundless in logic, and arguably mendacious in nature - is an attack on all. And so I have to stand with TJIC.

I am TJIC. So are you. If you blog, you are hereby authorized to use this image (created by your humble host, using The Gimp, not that it took any skill). Please link back to this post.

As they say, go read the whole thing.

"One down, 534 to go."

Not what I'd ever say, nor would most of you. In poor taste? You betcha. Does it mean he's armed himself and plans to eliminate the rest of Congress? No, or he'd be under arrest or at least be under further investigation. Should liberals who called for the death of George W. Bush be treated similarly? No, because it's their right to say crap like that. And, we've seen that being conservative is hardly a prerequisite for crazed assassins.

Mr. Corcoran's First and Second Amendment rights have been trampled. Period.

So, I am TJIC. You should be, too.