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this whole tjic thing
Feb. 1st, 2011 11:36 pmMaking the rounds of the blogosphere: A gun nut (and I mean that in the kindest way) in Arlington MA made a blog post the title of which I can most charitably describe as stupid and the cops came and impounded all his guns. People are getting upset about his freedom of speech, or his right to bear arms, and posting pictures from Spartacus in solidarity.
The blog has been taken down, and I don't have a copy of the whole post, so I can't judge whether it's reasonable to prosecute him for threatening or inciting to violence or conspiracy, all of which are IMO perfectly reasonable for a society to consider crimes of speech. And I also know, because TJIC is a friend of mine, that some of his weaponry is beyond what I feel requires constitutional protection.
But the episode makes me profoundly uncomfortable anyway, because there aren't any charges. I don't like that cops can just take anything they feel like, handwave that there might be a trial about it someday, and then you never see your stuff again. I don't know if TJIC should get his guns back or not, but I do know that a jury should decide that, not a police chief.
The blog has been taken down, and I don't have a copy of the whole post, so I can't judge whether it's reasonable to prosecute him for threatening or inciting to violence or conspiracy, all of which are IMO perfectly reasonable for a society to consider crimes of speech. And I also know, because TJIC is a friend of mine, that some of his weaponry is beyond what I feel requires constitutional protection.
But the episode makes me profoundly uncomfortable anyway, because there aren't any charges. I don't like that cops can just take anything they feel like, handwave that there might be a trial about it someday, and then you never see your stuff again. I don't know if TJIC should get his guns back or not, but I do know that a jury should decide that, not a police chief.
