Who said “national emergency”?
Among the horrifying, doomsday scenarios tossed up by — Republicans — over why Donny should not set a precedent over this “invasion” across the southern border was the possibility that in the future some (deranged, fanatical, Constitution-hating, tyrannical) Democrat would, you know, declare a national emergency and … you’re sitting down, right? … demand … background checks … on guns.
The unspeakable horror! Talk about Nazi-style overreach! What would be next, gummint-mandated castration for all real American males? Might as well. It’d be the same dang thing!
With Trump at long last declaring his national emergency, which, as we now know, he “didn’t have to do”, he jumped on Air Force One for Mar-a-Lago and a long President’s Day weekend of intense, hands-on management of the invasion emergency. Excuse me, not “emergency”. I meant, “golf”. Hands-on the putter, not on the “emergency.”
Simultaneous with Donny-in-the Garden yesterday we had news of yet another disgruntled citizen settling scores at his former place of employment. How? In the time-honored ‘Murican tradition of shooting up the place, killing five co-workers and wounding a bunch of cops.
Meanwhile, Minnesota peace officers up in tiny Nevis were dealing with something of the same. A family dispute at an in-home day-care center that erupted into Hollywood-style gunplay, including a chase with the totally legal conceal/carry perp shooting back and wounding a cop in a pursuing squad car. Grand total: three dead.
Also, still in the news, the rent-a-cop dude who shot up a school bus on the freeway here in Minneapolis because, wait for it, he “feared for his life”*.
This misplaced cowboy/too-many “action movies” bravado is so standard we’ve pretty much stopped asking any more questions about any of these incidents. But I’ve got a couple about the two here in Minnesota.
Specifically, this detail from Dan Browning’s Strib story on the Nevis shoot-out.
“Bryce Bellomo [the shooter] was well known in Nevis, a city of 400 residents. He was an award-winning taxidermist, volunteer firefighter, Boy Scout leader and baseball coach, the source said. Court records show that he had a permit to carry a firearm and was known to do so. Last March, he was charged with misdemeanor domestic assault and interfering with a 911 call in an incident involving his wife. According to court records, the couple had an argument and Bryce Bellomo forcibly took his wife’s cellphone and pushed her toward his vehicle, then drove her into the Paul Bunyan State Forest, where they got stuck. A SWAT team found them by pinging her cellphone and convinced Bryce Bellomo to walk out.”
Put another way, the constantly gun-toting Boy Scout leader had … a SWAT team … pull him out of a forest where he had essentially kidnapped and terrified his soon-to-be ex-wife … but months later, he was still packing his gun . Just in case, you know, he could defend himself against two women [the ex-wife’s sisters] messing with him outside a day-care center.
God forbid we have any kind of law that requires cops in a town of 400 to A: Take away the nutjob’s guns after a SWAT team has to track him down, and B: Stop him anytime they see him and shake him down to make sure he hasn’t re-armed.
Next, the school bus shooter, 31-year old automatic weapon-toting “security guard” Kenneth Lilly. The school bus episode is bonkers enough. (*”Feared for his life” is by now boilerplate law enforcement bullshit for every time they gun someone down in the line of duty. E.g. Philandro Castile.) But did you catch the story of Lilly’s previous gunfight?
This from a Libor Jany story in the Strib:
“According to a police report, Lilly said he was checking on his parents’ home while they were out of town and decided to drive to Shadow Falls Park at Summit Avenue and Mississippi River Boulevard late that night to view the blue moon. He met a woman sitting on the bluff and they began chatting. About 15 minutes later, they were approached by a man who asked to use Lilly’s phone, Lilly told police. He was reaching for it when Broadbent intervened, pointed a handgun at Lilly and the woman and demanded that he empty his pockets. Lilly “feared for his life and immediately lifted up his shirt which concealed a Glock 23 loaded with hollow point bullets on his right hip,” then fired four to five rounds at Broadbent. Broadbent was declared dead at the scene. Police seized the gun from Lilly at the scene. Upon searching him, they also found three Glock 40 magazines in his left front pocket, along with pepper spray, two pocket knives, a wallet, flashlight, cellphone and a set of car keys.”
Besides wondering how Lilly managed to whip out his Glock and pump four or five slugs into a guy who he says was already holding a gun on him, do any of you think it just a wee bit odd that a guy who wanders over to the riverbank to enjoy the moonlight and maybe meet a nice gal … is also packing three clips of ammo and two knives … in addition to the loaded Glock with hollow point bullets? I mean, that scenario gives a fresh luster to the old line about, “Is that your weapon officer, or are you just happy to see me?”
As I say these kinds of stories with these kinds of plainly unstable men (always) are so routine in the great and free US of A no one explores where these characters came from, or what explains their rage and paranoia? It’d be useful for some local feature writer to occasionally take a full dive into the back story of characters like the award-winning taxidermist/Boy Scout leader or young Mr. Lilly, the heavily armed rent-a-cop repeatedly “fearing for his life”. What were mom and dad like? What were theirsocial views when they talked with their friends, if they had any? What were their media influences?
But never mind. Our real national emergency isn’t the 350 million guns floating around this country, way too many in the hands of whack job solid citizens like the Boy Scout leader and the rent-a-cop. Or the 40,000 gun deaths every year. Uh uh. It’s the “invasion” of “millions” of rapists pouring across the Mexican border. Sean Hannity tells us so.
It’s an emergency so total and terrifying a guy needs a weekend of golf just to get his head around it.