Apparently Dr. George Tiller existing
'drew gun violence'
The wonderful thing about being a mostly insane nutcase with no actual apparent values other than the urgent need to impose one's own religious theories upon everyone else is that being a mostly insane nutcase tends to make any task or argument easier. Wichita, Kansas, became the ground zero for anti-abortion zealotry after the anti-abortion specifically made it such, and has since that time been a hotbed of violence, harassment, and whatever else the fine people of God felt like throwing at it. Now those same people of God
have a new premise:
Tuesday morning, abortion opponents went before the Wichita City Council seeking to shut down the South Wind Women’s Center, a clinic that provides abortions. Among their complaints: The clinic draws gun violence.
The South Wind Woman's Center is the clinic opened after George Tiller, owner of the previous clinic in that building, was shot dead in his church by an anti-abortion zealot. Tiller was previously shot by another anti-abortion protestor at his clinic, so anti-abortion radicals are indeed right to say that it seems to attract gun violence. Specifically, gun violence by anti-abortion radicals.
Of course that's not what the mostly insane nutcases mean, though. No, they mean that sometimes the security staff or others have guns, and that hurts their f--king fee-fees.
Reached by phone, Mark S. Gietzen, chairman of the Kansas Coalition for Life and one of the petitioners, had a rather different account. He said he and his fellow volunteers had counted 18 incidents involving guns — none actually discharged — between 2004 and 2009, two of which were security staff employed by the clinic pulling guns out of a holster, Gietzen said.
He also counts as “gun incidents” the guns toted by male associates angry at women in their lives getting abortions, including, he said, a “high-powered rifle” pulled on Gietzen himself by a man angry at his anti-abortion protesting.
More on these "gun incidents" below the fold.
So a gun incident in this case seems to be counted as (1) anyone who is not an anti-abortion protester merely having a gun or (2) anti-abortion protesters doing things seen as sufficiently threatening as to have clinic security intervene. (I'm calling bullshit on the last one. Yes, I'm calling Gietzen a liar.) In any other context in America, carrying a gun around for protection is very nearly a holy sacrament, and is certainly a God-given blah-de-blah right, all said in a very shouty tone of voice so you know those things are true, but not this one.
Perhaps the most lovely bit, though, is the part where Gietzen all but predicts there's going to be gun violence at the clinic in the future because, says the earnestly pro-life fellow, those security guards and clinic escorts have been treating protesters very badly and the protesters aren't likely to put up with it forever:
“Even a well-meaning dog will bite at some point in time if you keep antagonizing it,” Gietzen said.
Asked what he meant by that, Gietzen said, ”We have this concealed carry thing where half the people in Kansas are walking around with firearms.”
“The way this guy acts, I’m afraid that someone’s going to shoot him,” Gietzen continued, referring to the escort. “He’s asking for it. I don’t want for that to happen…It’s not good for the cause.”
Gietzen refused to say whether he or his fellow protesters are armed. “That’s not a polite question to ask an individual,” Gietzen said. “That’s why it’s concealed.”
And for that, Mark Gietzen gets a very hearty
fuck you from America, one with a nice cherry on top, and the earnest hope that he contract some horrible disease post-haste. He's trying to close the clinic where a doctor was shot by a protestor because of "gun violence," and in a city so riddled with city-sanctioned anti-abortion threats that doctors need bulletproof vests he's pissed that the clinic has guards with
guns, and he's "afraid" that someone on his side of the fence is "going to shoot" a clinic escort because it's of course the
protesters have the right to carry guns at the clinic if they want, that's 'Murika. Good show, Mr. Creepy, you've really captured the spirit of the Kansas anti-abortion movement and why everyone with the mental capacity officially above moron should treat you as a dangerous pack of nuts.
I'd say whatever the clinic security guards have been doing, they've so far been doing it right. If they've only had to draw their guns twice during all this time, it sounds like they have been very, very polite to Mr. Gietzen and his collection of proven-violent freaks.