"He Slipped My Radar, and I’m F–ked Up About It"
February 24, 2022 7:24 PM Subscribe
‘He Slipped My Radar, and I’m F–ked Up About It’: Furries Speak Out About Alleged Portland Shooter [Rolling Stone, Archive.org link] A very small but vocal far-right contingency has long plagued the furry community. Now it appears that online hate may have turned into real-world violence. Obvious content warnings.
This isn’t a “Portland problem” as much as it is yet another example of problematic people who are known to law enforcement who continue to have access to guns and inadequate mental health supports. From the article:
Ariadne Conill claimed on Twitter thread that Smith “used to join the IRC [instant messaging system] channel for my community, and describe in substantial detail, how he was going to go on a cross-country road trip, visiting and murdering all of us in ways that we would suffer.” She goes on to write, “to say that we got in touch with law enforcement would be an understatement. They didn’t care.” She claims that multiple people filed police reports about doxxing and death threats, but the Portland Police Bureau never took any action.
posted by amanda at 8:45 PM on February 24, 2022 [33 favorites]
Ariadne Conill claimed on Twitter thread that Smith “used to join the IRC [instant messaging system] channel for my community, and describe in substantial detail, how he was going to go on a cross-country road trip, visiting and murdering all of us in ways that we would suffer.” She goes on to write, “to say that we got in touch with law enforcement would be an understatement. They didn’t care.” She claims that multiple people filed police reports about doxxing and death threats, but the Portland Police Bureau never took any action.
posted by amanda at 8:45 PM on February 24, 2022 [33 favorites]
Several Seattle area furs I know, knew this guy for years and all had come to the conclusion that he was an irredeemable jackass leaning into violence and was thusly ostracized from their social spaces. He experienced a great deal of trauma, but had countless opportunities not to act like an asshole and refused all the offramps. None were surprised from this news, only saddened. I believe the ability to acquire, keep, and carry guns on the part of the general public has long outlived any possible benefit.
posted by panhopticon at 9:19 PM on February 24, 2022 [28 favorites]
posted by panhopticon at 9:19 PM on February 24, 2022 [28 favorites]
Nazi Furs, Yiff Off!
posted by CrunchyFrog at 10:23 PM on February 24, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by CrunchyFrog at 10:23 PM on February 24, 2022 [20 favorites]
I’m so mad that people in the community feel like they’ve failed, when the police, once again, did nothing. Fur stuff isn’t my bag, but they are a community that has done far more than most to police the Far Right inside its purview, so they are doing more than the wider society and deserve respect.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:10 AM on February 25, 2022 [34 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:10 AM on February 25, 2022 [34 favorites]
people who are known to law enforcement
Let's be careful with this phrasing, it's frequently pointed at people that the police want to tar without evidence.
posted by mhoye at 5:21 AM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
Let's be careful with this phrasing, it's frequently pointed at people that the police want to tar without evidence.
posted by mhoye at 5:21 AM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
I’m so mad that people in the community feel like they’ve failed, when the police, once again, did nothing. Fur stuff isn’t my bag, but they are a community that has done far more than most to police the Far Right inside its purview, so they are doing more than the wider society and deserve respect.
This is exactly how I feel, it's heartbreaking that the people calling this out in the face of police indifference are the ones feeling guilty. I don't want to derail this relatively narrowly-focused post by going on a generic anti-police rant, because the circumstances here are pretty specific and bad enough on their own, but boy not only do the police do a lot of harm but they really don't keep us safe.
posted by an octopus IRL at 5:32 AM on February 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
This is exactly how I feel, it's heartbreaking that the people calling this out in the face of police indifference are the ones feeling guilty. I don't want to derail this relatively narrowly-focused post by going on a generic anti-police rant, because the circumstances here are pretty specific and bad enough on their own, but boy not only do the police do a lot of harm but they really don't keep us safe.
posted by an octopus IRL at 5:32 AM on February 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
in the face of police indifference
Don't mistake complicity for indifference.
posted by mhoye at 5:52 AM on February 25, 2022 [22 favorites]
Don't mistake complicity for indifference.
posted by mhoye at 5:52 AM on February 25, 2022 [22 favorites]
From what I've read from my Portland friends there's a whole lot that's hinky about this case. It took several days for the police to name the suspect, despite him being identified by folks on the scene immediately. They were putting out statements about it being "complicated" leading to speculation that a cop or informant was involved. The police in Portland have behaved so badly for so long that no one in the progressive community feels like there's any hope of protection or government-supplied justice.
Smith's shooting spree was stopped when someone else at the event shot him. Which is kind of upsetting on its own and isn't getting a lot attention. Bringing guns to protests is a terrible, terrible idea.
posted by Nelson at 6:50 AM on February 25, 2022 [24 favorites]
Smith's shooting spree was stopped when someone else at the event shot him. Which is kind of upsetting on its own and isn't getting a lot attention. Bringing guns to protests is a terrible, terrible idea.
posted by Nelson at 6:50 AM on February 25, 2022 [24 favorites]
Is it far-fetched to believe that US police forces operate as death squads targeting antifascist activists?
posted by acb at 7:22 AM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by acb at 7:22 AM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
Yes. There are bad cops and bad police organizations. And far too many people killed by police, particularly Black men in non-political contexts. But nothing like "death squads targeting antifascist activists."
posted by Nelson at 7:35 AM on February 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 7:35 AM on February 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
Ehhh...
Was there any further info on the six mysterious BLM deaths in Ferguson? Did the Reinoehl killing ever resolve the conflicting reports between law enforcement on scene or between law enforcement reports and witness reports?
The people involved don't have to be trading "Rampart Totenkopf Battalion" challenge coins for it to be considered a death squad/posse.
posted by Slackermagee at 7:54 AM on February 25, 2022 [13 favorites]
Was there any further info on the six mysterious BLM deaths in Ferguson? Did the Reinoehl killing ever resolve the conflicting reports between law enforcement on scene or between law enforcement reports and witness reports?
The people involved don't have to be trading "Rampart Totenkopf Battalion" challenge coins for it to be considered a death squad/posse.
posted by Slackermagee at 7:54 AM on February 25, 2022 [13 favorites]
Smith's shooting spree was stopped when someone else at the event shot him. Which is kind of upsetting on its own and isn't getting a lot attention. Bringing guns to protests is a terrible, terrible idea.
Wait, what? The only reason he didn't kill more people is because someone else brought a gun to a protest, and you still think bringing a gun to a protest is a bad idea? You honestly would have preferred that all the protestors have been unarmed so more of them could have been murdered?
posted by Jacqueline at 8:04 AM on February 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Wait, what? The only reason he didn't kill more people is because someone else brought a gun to a protest, and you still think bringing a gun to a protest is a bad idea? You honestly would have preferred that all the protestors have been unarmed so more of them could have been murdered?
posted by Jacqueline at 8:04 AM on February 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
No, of course I would not preferred that more protestors had been shot. Please give me a little benefit of the doubt before escalating something to the most outrageous extreme.
I am frightened by the escalation of gun violence in America. Bringing guns to protests is part of that escalation. I am most worried about fascists and white supremacists who show up armed, undisciplined, and occasionally shoot people. But yes I'm also worried about progressives bringing guns. Because inevitably they will kill people too. It will give bad cops a pretext for shooting protestors. Worse it will cause an escalation in violence towards outright gun battles. Battles we will badly lose against the police and military, I might add.
But Portland is in a very precarious situation. There are regular, legal, valuable non-violent protests. There are also neo-Nazis in Portland who want to attack those protests. And the cops can't be trusted to protect the protestors. It's a bad situation but I don't think escalating to arming for all out war is a good path. It leads to civil war.
To take an adjacent scenario, there are a lot of gun nuts arguing for arming teachers in schools to protect kids against school shooters. I think that's absolutely insane too.
Guns make situations more dangerous, not safer. Non-violent protest has a long and noble history worldwide for a reason.
posted by Nelson at 8:10 AM on February 25, 2022 [33 favorites]
I am frightened by the escalation of gun violence in America. Bringing guns to protests is part of that escalation. I am most worried about fascists and white supremacists who show up armed, undisciplined, and occasionally shoot people. But yes I'm also worried about progressives bringing guns. Because inevitably they will kill people too. It will give bad cops a pretext for shooting protestors. Worse it will cause an escalation in violence towards outright gun battles. Battles we will badly lose against the police and military, I might add.
But Portland is in a very precarious situation. There are regular, legal, valuable non-violent protests. There are also neo-Nazis in Portland who want to attack those protests. And the cops can't be trusted to protect the protestors. It's a bad situation but I don't think escalating to arming for all out war is a good path. It leads to civil war.
To take an adjacent scenario, there are a lot of gun nuts arguing for arming teachers in schools to protect kids against school shooters. I think that's absolutely insane too.
Guns make situations more dangerous, not safer. Non-violent protest has a long and noble history worldwide for a reason.
posted by Nelson at 8:10 AM on February 25, 2022 [33 favorites]
An expectation that a protest will turn into a shootout has all kinds of horrible implications. The two most blatantly obvious ones are (a) the cops will feel that much more licensed to use lethal force whenever the mood strikes them; and (b) even trained shooters miss. A lot. Random protestors with guns, however well-meaning, are likely to shoot when it's not absolutely necessary and hit something or someone other than what they're aiming for.
posted by praemunire at 8:12 AM on February 25, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 8:12 AM on February 25, 2022 [14 favorites]
FWIW i think that non-violence "works" when you expose the hidden brutality of government and other power structures, not when you expose yourself to deadly violence from organized paramilitaries.
posted by entropone at 8:16 AM on February 25, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by entropone at 8:16 AM on February 25, 2022 [15 favorites]
Getting back to the Far Right and the Fur community, the podcast The Worst Year Ever did a two-episode discussion of the situation and the community's tactics, which seem to have been fairly effective. Part 1 (1/15/2020) Part 2 (1/16/2020) -- I give the dates because the iHeart website is kind of garbage, and that way you can find it in your app's feed for the show.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:18 AM on February 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:18 AM on February 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Also, if possible, could we try to discuss the actual article? The derail into "guns at protests" is not all that helpful, and there is a story here of a community trying to police itself that is pretty important to grapple with.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:20 AM on February 25, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:20 AM on February 25, 2022 [11 favorites]
The article references sociologist Colin Campbell “cultic milieu”, which was originally a method for analyzing the religious beliefs of unchurched religious/spiritual 'seekers'. Examples like astrology and witchcraft are cultic beliefs that have grown as counterculture approaches to belief/life. As originally conceived, Campbell defined these seekers as group that rejects, broadly speaking, certain dominant established social cultures, and was originally narrowly focused on religion and organized church.
Campbells idea of the Cultic is not the rigid traditional definition of a group under the leadership of a specific charismatic leader. His cultic milieu is seen as a loose, poorly structured group of people looking for a more permissive, unorthodox and oppositional to the dominant culture. Campbell argued that the this lack of structure fostered a cross-pollination of believes that defines the cultic milieu as a cultural underground where sub or anti-cultural beliefs prosper and spread. The core of the movement is an oppositional belief structure and is a mixture of occultism, pseudoscience, mysticism, and conspiracy theory. Campbell's book on this was published back in 1972.
It's been interesting to see how Campbell's 'seekers' who embrace a variety of deviant and heterodoxical approaches to religion is being expanded to a broader political and social movement, and how obvious the parallels are.
I think this article from CARR does a decent job of laying out why Antifa are taking about a 50 year old sociology of religion theory.
posted by zenon at 8:51 AM on February 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
Campbells idea of the Cultic is not the rigid traditional definition of a group under the leadership of a specific charismatic leader. His cultic milieu is seen as a loose, poorly structured group of people looking for a more permissive, unorthodox and oppositional to the dominant culture. Campbell argued that the this lack of structure fostered a cross-pollination of believes that defines the cultic milieu as a cultural underground where sub or anti-cultural beliefs prosper and spread. The core of the movement is an oppositional belief structure and is a mixture of occultism, pseudoscience, mysticism, and conspiracy theory. Campbell's book on this was published back in 1972.
It's been interesting to see how Campbell's 'seekers' who embrace a variety of deviant and heterodoxical approaches to religion is being expanded to a broader political and social movement, and how obvious the parallels are.
I think this article from CARR does a decent job of laying out why Antifa are taking about a 50 year old sociology of religion theory.
posted by zenon at 8:51 AM on February 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
As I understand it from activists on twitter, in Portland they've had years and years of police complicity with far right attackers, which is why activists are armed at protests. And it seems like police complicity with really active, individual attackers - the 2017 train stabbings, various serious beatings of activists outside of bars, really serious attacks at protests. Some of these people have eventually been arrested, but most of them have not and most of them have a long history of political violence.
This seems more intense than the general, quiet complicity with the far right in most cities because of the history of very violent unprovoked specifically nazi attacks. Like, here in Minneapolis, as far as I know there are individual right-wing activists who are hostile and dangerous, but there isn't the same history of literally stalking left activists down the street and severely beating them. In Portland, there are a number of specific, violent people who are well known to activists and have a history of extreme violence.
It isn't surprising that this happened in Portland first because the far right in Portland knows very well that it can get away with hospitalizing activists and BIPOC in general.
I guarantee you that a lot more people on the left nation-wide are armed at protests now. A few years ago I thought this was a bad idea; at this point I think it's a bad idea but being totally unarmed is a worse one. The message that is going out to the far right is that they can literally walk up to people at a protest and murder us and have good odds of getting away with it. With the specific culture among nazis/alt-right types and the way that people like Andy Ngo create and publicize kill lists, knowing that at least a few of the more hard core people around me are armed and practice at the range makes me feel better, not worse. I wish this were not the case, there are long term organizing strategies which may calm things down again, but this isn't 2010.
If anything, the past few years have suggested to me that it's better to listen to the doomsayers than to assume they're wrong.
posted by Frowner at 9:18 AM on February 25, 2022 [26 favorites]
This seems more intense than the general, quiet complicity with the far right in most cities because of the history of very violent unprovoked specifically nazi attacks. Like, here in Minneapolis, as far as I know there are individual right-wing activists who are hostile and dangerous, but there isn't the same history of literally stalking left activists down the street and severely beating them. In Portland, there are a number of specific, violent people who are well known to activists and have a history of extreme violence.
It isn't surprising that this happened in Portland first because the far right in Portland knows very well that it can get away with hospitalizing activists and BIPOC in general.
I guarantee you that a lot more people on the left nation-wide are armed at protests now. A few years ago I thought this was a bad idea; at this point I think it's a bad idea but being totally unarmed is a worse one. The message that is going out to the far right is that they can literally walk up to people at a protest and murder us and have good odds of getting away with it. With the specific culture among nazis/alt-right types and the way that people like Andy Ngo create and publicize kill lists, knowing that at least a few of the more hard core people around me are armed and practice at the range makes me feel better, not worse. I wish this were not the case, there are long term organizing strategies which may calm things down again, but this isn't 2010.
If anything, the past few years have suggested to me that it's better to listen to the doomsayers than to assume they're wrong.
posted by Frowner at 9:18 AM on February 25, 2022 [26 favorites]
As I understand it from activists on twitter, in Portland they've had years and years of police complicity with far right attackers, which is why activists are armed at protests. And it seems like police complicity with really active, individual attackers -
I'm going to remind and just bring in the story of Michael Reinoehl who was armed, protesting, shot a right-wing asshole and got murdered by the police. And, like, nobody here is really talking about it. Because leftists honestly and truly don't know what to do when one of their own shows up armed, kills a guy and then gets murdered by the cops. I could be wrong about "nobody talking about it" but of all the things that went on here in Portland, I find this one of the most shocking and the least on-the-radar. Because he killed a man in the street and fled.
knowing that at least a few of the more hard core people around me are armed and practice at the range makes me feel better, not worse.
Hm. You are more optimistic than I. I don't think there is any requirement to practice? Or be sober. Or smart. Or compassionate while carrying a lethal weapon. And you can be all those things and end up killing a person and getting murdered by the cops.
I think the communities that involved this man, who seems heavily online and engaged, did what they could do to police their community. But they aren't the police-police. And there is apparently no mechanism yet in place to deal with people who are problematic in regards to their access to lethal weapons like guns. And if there is a mechanism in place, it clearly doesn't work. I'm not at all surprised that the cops had the appearance of dragging their feet on this insane situation of a dude walking out of his house and firing into a crowd. If that crowd is left/BIPOC/anything other than Trumpers, the police appear to not know how to do their jobs.
posted by amanda at 10:16 AM on February 25, 2022 [10 favorites]
I'm going to remind and just bring in the story of Michael Reinoehl who was armed, protesting, shot a right-wing asshole and got murdered by the police. And, like, nobody here is really talking about it. Because leftists honestly and truly don't know what to do when one of their own shows up armed, kills a guy and then gets murdered by the cops. I could be wrong about "nobody talking about it" but of all the things that went on here in Portland, I find this one of the most shocking and the least on-the-radar. Because he killed a man in the street and fled.
knowing that at least a few of the more hard core people around me are armed and practice at the range makes me feel better, not worse.
Hm. You are more optimistic than I. I don't think there is any requirement to practice? Or be sober. Or smart. Or compassionate while carrying a lethal weapon. And you can be all those things and end up killing a person and getting murdered by the cops.
I think the communities that involved this man, who seems heavily online and engaged, did what they could do to police their community. But they aren't the police-police. And there is apparently no mechanism yet in place to deal with people who are problematic in regards to their access to lethal weapons like guns. And if there is a mechanism in place, it clearly doesn't work. I'm not at all surprised that the cops had the appearance of dragging their feet on this insane situation of a dude walking out of his house and firing into a crowd. If that crowd is left/BIPOC/anything other than Trumpers, the police appear to not know how to do their jobs.
posted by amanda at 10:16 AM on February 25, 2022 [10 favorites]
There's a big difference between "unarmed" and "doesn't have a gun".
Bringing a gun to a protest is good for cops, provocateurs, or anyone who is primarily interested in murder. It's bad for protesters, bystanders, or anyone who frowns upon indiscriminate murder. Bullets don't politely stop after penetrating a single target!
If someone is shooting a gun in a crowd, there are plenty of non-gun ways of making them stop. It's been known to happen. There are plenty of things you can find at protests, or which are a good idea to bring, that you can use to help stop a gunshooter. If you're going to attend any more protests, this is a good thing to think about and to discuss with your comrades.
Guns are not defensive armament. That's 'good guy with a gun' bullshit. No one has ever blocked a bullet with another bullet on purpose.
I mean, there's always a pallet of bricks to get behind aint there
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 10:22 AM on February 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
Bringing a gun to a protest is good for cops, provocateurs, or anyone who is primarily interested in murder. It's bad for protesters, bystanders, or anyone who frowns upon indiscriminate murder. Bullets don't politely stop after penetrating a single target!
If someone is shooting a gun in a crowd, there are plenty of non-gun ways of making them stop. It's been known to happen. There are plenty of things you can find at protests, or which are a good idea to bring, that you can use to help stop a gunshooter. If you're going to attend any more protests, this is a good thing to think about and to discuss with your comrades.
Guns are not defensive armament. That's 'good guy with a gun' bullshit. No one has ever blocked a bullet with another bullet on purpose.
I mean, there's always a pallet of bricks to get behind aint there
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 10:22 AM on February 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
Bringing a gun to a protest is good for cops, provocateurs, or anyone who is primarily interested in murder. It's bad for protesters, bystanders, or anyone who frowns upon indiscriminate murder. Bullets don't politely stop after penetrating a single target!
Well in this case it stopped the shooter sooooo
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:30 AM on February 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Well in this case it stopped the shooter sooooo
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:30 AM on February 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Given the propensity for the Portland Police to shoot people in the head with tear gas canisters and/or provide escorts to fascists when they come to Portland to attack people who live here, I don't think it's the worst idea to be prepared with plate carriers and individual first aid kits.
That they originally framed this as a dispute between protestors and a "homeowner"—and then waited days to back off on that story—says a lot.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 11:11 AM on February 25, 2022 [13 favorites]
That they originally framed this as a dispute between protestors and a "homeowner"—and then waited days to back off on that story—says a lot.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 11:11 AM on February 25, 2022 [13 favorites]
As I understood it, it wasn't the police who pressed to charge the guy, it was the DA. The police were soft-pedaling the whole story in the hope that it would go away.
The point of being armed is so that you don't have to shoot. If white supremacists know that they can kill us in cold blood, walk away and either never get arrested or get acquitted, they have zero incentive not to murder people. If they know that there's some odds that they will be seriously injured or die, they are less likely to start shooting. I'm not saying "hooray, I like this so much better than the mass protests of my youth, this is great!", I'm saying that failing to take your enemy seriously is a bad idea. These are people who literally, actually are working up to mass murder. Like, what's next? A few of them show up with semi-automatics and kill fifty people while the cops turn their backs? That seems pretty possible to me, frankly.
Every time someone commits a serious beating and gets away with it, or shoots someone and is acquitted, that tells a large number of very dangerous people that they can take the next step. Truly believe in your heart that there is a critical mass of people across this great nation who enjoy committing violence against marginalized people and the left and who will do this preferentially, for fun, as a hobby and bonding activity if they can get away with it.
~~
On another note: I sometimes regret that I've criticized specific things about the radical left on here, because I think this just feeds into the already existing perception that if someone is a radical they are ipso facto stupid, lazy and careless, and therefore if they for instance are armed, they just, like, bought a saturday night special that they keep tucked loosely in their messenger bag with the safety off.
I try not to know things I shouldn't know, but I am pretty confident based on milieu stuff that the leftists around here who are armed at protests do in fact practice at the range, are in fact pretty careful and are not in fact particularly stupid. There's a simply tremendous amount of information and infrastructural support for street medic and anti-gunshot training right now, too. In the nineties, this was all pretty lightweight, like "be a street medic, learn to apply a bandaid to a graze when someone trips and in theory you know some of the wrong ways to deal with pepper spray". This is not how things are now. There's real, solid field medicine stuff out there with the backing of people who do medical work.
posted by Frowner at 11:27 AM on February 25, 2022 [14 favorites]
The point of being armed is so that you don't have to shoot. If white supremacists know that they can kill us in cold blood, walk away and either never get arrested or get acquitted, they have zero incentive not to murder people. If they know that there's some odds that they will be seriously injured or die, they are less likely to start shooting. I'm not saying "hooray, I like this so much better than the mass protests of my youth, this is great!", I'm saying that failing to take your enemy seriously is a bad idea. These are people who literally, actually are working up to mass murder. Like, what's next? A few of them show up with semi-automatics and kill fifty people while the cops turn their backs? That seems pretty possible to me, frankly.
Every time someone commits a serious beating and gets away with it, or shoots someone and is acquitted, that tells a large number of very dangerous people that they can take the next step. Truly believe in your heart that there is a critical mass of people across this great nation who enjoy committing violence against marginalized people and the left and who will do this preferentially, for fun, as a hobby and bonding activity if they can get away with it.
~~
On another note: I sometimes regret that I've criticized specific things about the radical left on here, because I think this just feeds into the already existing perception that if someone is a radical they are ipso facto stupid, lazy and careless, and therefore if they for instance are armed, they just, like, bought a saturday night special that they keep tucked loosely in their messenger bag with the safety off.
I try not to know things I shouldn't know, but I am pretty confident based on milieu stuff that the leftists around here who are armed at protests do in fact practice at the range, are in fact pretty careful and are not in fact particularly stupid. There's a simply tremendous amount of information and infrastructural support for street medic and anti-gunshot training right now, too. In the nineties, this was all pretty lightweight, like "be a street medic, learn to apply a bandaid to a graze when someone trips and in theory you know some of the wrong ways to deal with pepper spray". This is not how things are now. There's real, solid field medicine stuff out there with the backing of people who do medical work.
posted by Frowner at 11:27 AM on February 25, 2022 [14 favorites]
Frowner, I'm in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with the concerns and sentiment that motivate the argument you're making while, nevertheless, knowing with certainty that adding more guns to American civil discourse is utterly bonkers.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:15 PM on February 25, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:15 PM on February 25, 2022 [13 favorites]
It sucks, but every time I see the Proud Boys driving around downtown Portland shooting people with paintball guns, I see it only as working their way up to using actual bullets. And the mayor does nothing. Just like he did at the press conference about this incident.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 1:26 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 1:26 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Frowner, I'm in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with the concerns and sentiment that motivate the argument you're making while, nevertheless, knowing with certainty that adding more guns to American civil discourse is utterly bonkers.
The trouble is that these are bonkers times and all the choices are bad. I think it's certainly possible to say "no, not me, I'm not going to prioritize security concerns and I will act in a spirit of defiant pacifism and if I get beaten or killed history will vindicate my actions", but if that's your approach you need to know in your heart for real that you are running a risk and that there won't be any justice if you're harmed. I think the real problems occur when people think they can get rid of risk by holding the right beliefs and taking the morally correct actions, like if they are peaceful and innocent enough everything will work out okay. When people assess a situation and have different but reality-based conclusions about how to act, that tends to work out.
The protest that was attached in Portland was, per my internet, one of the more peaceful and hippy ones, the people who were shot were extremely non-threatening and the person who died was a sixty year old woman. At earlier points in our horrible arc, I felt that even the nazis would hesitate before killing older people and that therefore there was some point in, eg, radical nuns to the front lines, but that doesn't hold anymore.
posted by Frowner at 1:45 PM on February 25, 2022 [16 favorites]
The trouble is that these are bonkers times and all the choices are bad. I think it's certainly possible to say "no, not me, I'm not going to prioritize security concerns and I will act in a spirit of defiant pacifism and if I get beaten or killed history will vindicate my actions", but if that's your approach you need to know in your heart for real that you are running a risk and that there won't be any justice if you're harmed. I think the real problems occur when people think they can get rid of risk by holding the right beliefs and taking the morally correct actions, like if they are peaceful and innocent enough everything will work out okay. When people assess a situation and have different but reality-based conclusions about how to act, that tends to work out.
The protest that was attached in Portland was, per my internet, one of the more peaceful and hippy ones, the people who were shot were extremely non-threatening and the person who died was a sixty year old woman. At earlier points in our horrible arc, I felt that even the nazis would hesitate before killing older people and that therefore there was some point in, eg, radical nuns to the front lines, but that doesn't hold anymore.
posted by Frowner at 1:45 PM on February 25, 2022 [16 favorites]
I felt that even the nazis would hesitate before killing older people
Well now. Only if they agreed the older people were people. Otherwise, those were the first to go.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:02 PM on February 25, 2022 [8 favorites]
Well now. Only if they agreed the older people were people. Otherwise, those were the first to go.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:02 PM on February 25, 2022 [8 favorites]
American cops only serve on fascist death squads on their days off. The rest of the time it's just a regular police state, and the deaths squads are ad hoc. Yadda yadda thin blue line yadda yadda.
posted by spitbull at 3:43 AM on February 26, 2022
posted by spitbull at 3:43 AM on February 26, 2022
Well yeah, the issue with bringing guns to protests it that it starts a literal arms race not that it is individually irrational
If you think that others are going to be armed and that they might starting shooting at you then it is logical to arm yourself as well. That in turn serves as justification for others, maybe not even involved in any particular protest but just nearby to arm themselves just in case. Of course the police are also armed and are nervous and on a hair trigger to open up even if you discount their likely prejudices for some and against other protesters.
So it becomes impossible to point to a particular person and say: "you have caused this by bringing your gun to a protest" because they can legitimately say, "lots of other people were armed and I was trying to protect myself". Once the shooting starts, lots of people are firing in all directions and all of them claim self defence. See also that Rittenhouse dork and the absolute charmers who he ended up shooting. One of them was armed as well and both that guy and Rittenhouse himself were able to make a claim that they were armed and either able or willing to use their weapons to defend themselves from the other. It's a little like the scene at the end of Burn After Reading where the CIA guys are just sitting there aghast at a completely pointless set of circumstances from which nobody has gained anything nor learned anything.
This is literally the reasoning behind state monopolies on violence - not that the state is always such a wonderful custodian of that monopoly but that without it everything descends into vendetta. With all of these over-broad stand-your-ground laws you get the survivors standing ankle deep in blood and completely justified in the eyes of the law because it is no longer clear who "started" "it" and what should be a murder prosecution turns into a sterile legalistic nitpicking exercise over what those two words actually mean in this particular case.
posted by atrazine at 5:31 AM on February 26, 2022 [8 favorites]
If you think that others are going to be armed and that they might starting shooting at you then it is logical to arm yourself as well. That in turn serves as justification for others, maybe not even involved in any particular protest but just nearby to arm themselves just in case. Of course the police are also armed and are nervous and on a hair trigger to open up even if you discount their likely prejudices for some and against other protesters.
So it becomes impossible to point to a particular person and say: "you have caused this by bringing your gun to a protest" because they can legitimately say, "lots of other people were armed and I was trying to protect myself". Once the shooting starts, lots of people are firing in all directions and all of them claim self defence. See also that Rittenhouse dork and the absolute charmers who he ended up shooting. One of them was armed as well and both that guy and Rittenhouse himself were able to make a claim that they were armed and either able or willing to use their weapons to defend themselves from the other. It's a little like the scene at the end of Burn After Reading where the CIA guys are just sitting there aghast at a completely pointless set of circumstances from which nobody has gained anything nor learned anything.
This is literally the reasoning behind state monopolies on violence - not that the state is always such a wonderful custodian of that monopoly but that without it everything descends into vendetta. With all of these over-broad stand-your-ground laws you get the survivors standing ankle deep in blood and completely justified in the eyes of the law because it is no longer clear who "started" "it" and what should be a murder prosecution turns into a sterile legalistic nitpicking exercise over what those two words actually mean in this particular case.
posted by atrazine at 5:31 AM on February 26, 2022 [8 favorites]
That's the thing that fucks with me about this whole affair, atrazine - the local government has repeatedly failed to maintain their monopoly on violence, for years on end. There has been a gradual and well-documented escalation of extralegal street violence associated with the right wing around the Portland and Salem metro areas. As Frowner noted upthread, most of this violence has not been checked by state power. A notable example if you want to see what I'm talking about is Alan Swinney, who was a very vocal and extreme right-wing weirdo who traveled from Texas to the Portland metro on multiple occasions. He was documented pointing what appeared to be firearms at people at multiple protests. Police did not interrupt this in the moment. He showed up at another protest, pointed firearms again, and was eventually arrested.
I will here leave aside my usual comments about the character of police response to "right wing" vs "left wing" violence as perceived by police. The indifferent response to right-wing violence suggests to me that either local officials can't control the police or they don't give a shit and either way what it means is that the legitimacy of the state is weakened. That's bad. I guess I can turn in my anarchy card because while I don't love the fucking government, I will 100% take it over an environment in which vigilante violence is on the table like this. Jesus.
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 10:25 AM on February 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
I will here leave aside my usual comments about the character of police response to "right wing" vs "left wing" violence as perceived by police. The indifferent response to right-wing violence suggests to me that either local officials can't control the police or they don't give a shit and either way what it means is that the legitimacy of the state is weakened. That's bad. I guess I can turn in my anarchy card because while I don't love the fucking government, I will 100% take it over an environment in which vigilante violence is on the table like this. Jesus.
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 10:25 AM on February 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
You can point to the side that regularly brings weapons to intimidate protests. At first it was the police, now it's the right wing and police. The kinds of people who invited themselves and their weaponry to largely peaceful protests, with a long history of striving for justice.
Both sides are not equal here. They never are. One is defending oppression and discrimination while one is defying evil. It's not that a handful of people on both sides started by bringing guns, it's that one side had all the dogs and firehoses and guns and presenting enough of a threat of violence that it sounds like a fraction of the protesters on the front lines are starting to consider how to deal with unrestrained aggression. It's absolutely easy to point at the people who first brought guns. They're proud of it, they have websites and Torchlight rallies and communities.
posted by Jacen at 4:02 PM on February 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
Both sides are not equal here. They never are. One is defending oppression and discrimination while one is defying evil. It's not that a handful of people on both sides started by bringing guns, it's that one side had all the dogs and firehoses and guns and presenting enough of a threat of violence that it sounds like a fraction of the protesters on the front lines are starting to consider how to deal with unrestrained aggression. It's absolutely easy to point at the people who first brought guns. They're proud of it, they have websites and Torchlight rallies and communities.
posted by Jacen at 4:02 PM on February 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
Personally, in general, I'm very much in the "punch a Nazi" camp. My inclination is pretty much exactly in line with your argument, Frowner. I intellectually believe that pacifism is morally correct, but I've never really been able to actually embrace that ethos.
Without thinking about it very much, as an individual the idea of being armed as a protester in defense from armed fascists seems like common sense to me. But when I think about it collectively — the idea of many people doing the same, and what that implies — I immediately begin to have doubts.
Then I begin to think about a couple of things.
Specifically, first I think about both the guy that was armed against Rittenhouse and, in the chaos, it wasn't apparent to everyone who the bad guy actually was. I also think about the Waco biker gang debacle where as soon as one gun was fired, all those bikers and other civilians who were armed immediately never targets of each other and, in particular, the police who were primed and legally (if arguably dubiously) justified to shoot every person they saw holding a gun.
Then, more generally, I think about what the empirical evidence says about the history of Americans arming themselves for self-defense. By pretty much all metrics, it's proven to be counter-productive. People are likely to have their own guns used against them, they are likely to immediately escalate a confrontation to lethal force regardless of provocation, they are likely to accidently shoot themselves or nearby innocents, and they make themselves instant targets of trigger-happy police.
Both of those different lines of reasoning strongly imply to me that the whole idea is very likely to be a big net negative. For every murderous fascist who's prevented from killing someone, there will be three people who are killed who otherwise never would have been.
You're kind of the last person among those of us here who are American who I'd have expected to argue in favor of guns. All things equal, amongst those of us who aren't already pro-gun, I'd expect myself to be among the first to say, yeah, let's arm ourselves against fascists. So I'm bemused to find our positions reversed.
It implies to me that both our positions have merit and that, additionally, that we're even discussing this means there's a serious problem.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:00 AM on February 27, 2022 [6 favorites]
Without thinking about it very much, as an individual the idea of being armed as a protester in defense from armed fascists seems like common sense to me. But when I think about it collectively — the idea of many people doing the same, and what that implies — I immediately begin to have doubts.
Then I begin to think about a couple of things.
Specifically, first I think about both the guy that was armed against Rittenhouse and, in the chaos, it wasn't apparent to everyone who the bad guy actually was. I also think about the Waco biker gang debacle where as soon as one gun was fired, all those bikers and other civilians who were armed immediately never targets of each other and, in particular, the police who were primed and legally (if arguably dubiously) justified to shoot every person they saw holding a gun.
Then, more generally, I think about what the empirical evidence says about the history of Americans arming themselves for self-defense. By pretty much all metrics, it's proven to be counter-productive. People are likely to have their own guns used against them, they are likely to immediately escalate a confrontation to lethal force regardless of provocation, they are likely to accidently shoot themselves or nearby innocents, and they make themselves instant targets of trigger-happy police.
Both of those different lines of reasoning strongly imply to me that the whole idea is very likely to be a big net negative. For every murderous fascist who's prevented from killing someone, there will be three people who are killed who otherwise never would have been.
You're kind of the last person among those of us here who are American who I'd have expected to argue in favor of guns. All things equal, amongst those of us who aren't already pro-gun, I'd expect myself to be among the first to say, yeah, let's arm ourselves against fascists. So I'm bemused to find our positions reversed.
It implies to me that both our positions have merit and that, additionally, that we're even discussing this means there's a serious problem.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:00 AM on February 27, 2022 [6 favorites]
I am pretty confident based on milieu stuff that the leftists around here who are armed at protests do in fact practice at the range, are in fact pretty careful and are not in fact particularly stupid
I believe you know what you know, but you do not and cannot know who else is turning up at these protests, and you do not know if there are any steps that can be taken to identify and get guns out of the hands of people who may have been careful in the past but who are cracking under the pressure.
Also, not for nothing, but the reason that nonviolence has become such a principle of protest in modern times is not because no one longs to punch a Nazi/colonizer/what-have-you, nor because it's inevitably the best PR, nor because people are high on their own moral supply and think nonviolence will protect them, but because marginalized people mobilizing with arms will almost inevitably be read by the state as insurrection and there is no way that will end well, short of genuine and successful revolution. If the cops and then the armed forces start treating every protest like a potential firefight, there will be many many many dead 60-year-olds on the streets.
There is a point at which being prepared for armed conflict is the only way, but it is at the moment just before societal disintegration, and usually contributes to the hastening of the same. In the end, it's your own life and your own moral responsibility and everyone has to make that call for themselves, but it's not just a matter of being able to shoot back if someone is shooting at you.
posted by praemunire at 10:17 AM on February 27, 2022 [5 favorites]
I believe you know what you know, but you do not and cannot know who else is turning up at these protests, and you do not know if there are any steps that can be taken to identify and get guns out of the hands of people who may have been careful in the past but who are cracking under the pressure.
Also, not for nothing, but the reason that nonviolence has become such a principle of protest in modern times is not because no one longs to punch a Nazi/colonizer/what-have-you, nor because it's inevitably the best PR, nor because people are high on their own moral supply and think nonviolence will protect them, but because marginalized people mobilizing with arms will almost inevitably be read by the state as insurrection and there is no way that will end well, short of genuine and successful revolution. If the cops and then the armed forces start treating every protest like a potential firefight, there will be many many many dead 60-year-olds on the streets.
There is a point at which being prepared for armed conflict is the only way, but it is at the moment just before societal disintegration, and usually contributes to the hastening of the same. In the end, it's your own life and your own moral responsibility and everyone has to make that call for themselves, but it's not just a matter of being able to shoot back if someone is shooting at you.
posted by praemunire at 10:17 AM on February 27, 2022 [5 favorites]
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