Researchers Descended Upon by Second Amendment Border Vigilantes
I haven't had time to write the way I'd like to, which is ideally, A Thousand Words Before Breakfast. So instead, I just wanted to bring this in from Esquire's Charles P. Pierce and his highly recommended column/blog, Here's Some Stupid for Lunch. The entry is from yesterday, September 5. He's titled the piece "Oh, Christ, what next?"
The close call between a batshit crazy group of armed border vigilantes and a group of researches checking on bat populations in the area, occurred on or near Federal Land, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Coronado National Forest in Arizona. Ah, the Old West. Not long ago Nevada's Cliven Bundy and his merry band of rogues trained their weapons on Federal Agents, the same rag-tag band that Hannity, in typical knee-jerk fashion, declared a militia formed of "True Patriots?"
For some time now, with story after story of school shootings and other incidents like (and much worse than) this one, the NRA proves a bane to common morality and continues to pull down national morale. According to Leonard Peltier, er, I'm sorry, I mean Wayne LaPierre (I always mix those two Frenchies up) President of the NRA, home is the place where the only way to ever feel really secure is to tote a weapon of some magnitude.
All I keep thinking whenever I read the stupidities of the U.S.'s revivified Gun Culture is that George Washington, along with the entire Continental Army, are all rolling in their graves at the perversities to which we've subjected both the Second Amendment and the word "Patriot." Perverse, I tell you! I get so angry sometimes. More later, friends.
Authorities say, apparently, a group of heavily-armed border militia members mistook conservationists researching bats for [a group of] illegal immigrants or smugglers. It happened Aug. 23 in the Gardner Canyon area near Sonoita where the small group of conservationists was out in the middle of the night conducting a wildlife population survey, in this case, counting bats. Nobody was hurt during the confrontation, but the incident has law enforcement taking notice.
How about we have the "authorities" do a little bit more than "take notice"? How about we have them round up these gun-totin' yahoos and send them back to the bait shops and feed lots they came from? We certainly do have a problem "securing the border." It's just not the problem people tell you it is.
Estrada says one of the militiamen apologized to the group of conservationists, who apparently did not want to hear it. "Of course, they weren't very receptive about the apology. They actually told them that's something you should not be doing. There's danger out there.There's other groups of people in campsites," Estrada says.
Unreasonable tree-hugging bat-lovers!
Sheriff Estrada says Santa Cruz County does not welcome border militia groups. "These people that are completely out of their environment. They really don't know the area. They don't know the terrain. They have little knowledge of the dynamics of the border. So it can be a real problem," Estrada says. "We really don't want them here."
So get rid of them. I thought county sheriffs were the only legitimate governmental authority to these clowns, anyway.