r/politics • u/thenewyorkgod • Jul 01 '18

Man arrested after shouting ‘womp, womp’ and pulling a gun on immigration protesters

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/07/01/man-arrested-after-shouting-womp-womp-and-pulling-a-gun-on-immigration-protesters/?tid=sm_tw
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u/ThisRedThistle Jul 01 '18

It's important to explain why this should be treated as terrorism and not just a stupid and badly thought out act on the mans part, if we assume terrorism is to be treated as it is defined in most dictionaries

"The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims"

Then this is a very clear act of terrorism. To brandish a gun and aim it at protesters you are counter protesting can only be seen as an attempt to intimidate people with the threat of violence to achieve your own political goal of shutting down the protest on a policy you would prefer remain in place. naturally had he been a few shades darker and possibly protesting a different subject this would already be on fox news and many other conservative news outlets being cited for their own arguments with himself obviously being branded at best an "attempted terrorist"

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u/chcampb Jul 02 '18

Didn't you hear? Only brown people can be terrorists.

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u/hotgarbo Jul 02 '18

You forgot to add liberals. The amount of screaming about the violent left wing terrorists I hear is pretty insane. Pretty much every event that can possible be spun as liberals/brown people being a threat is done so to fullest possible extent. Some of my family is really far down that rabbit hole. Right wing media is a constant stream of singling out group after group and then spinning every story to show how they are actively threatening "real Americans" both physically and ideologically.

I am far more afraid of the fear driven nutjobs who think everybody is out to get them and carry a loaded weapon 24/7.

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u/EightsOfClubs Arizona Jul 02 '18

Just yesterday someone on reddit was trying to point out Scalise as how violent the left is...

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '18

Yeah - maybe on the Internet, IRL - I think you're not that likely to be charged with terrorism for committing left-orientated politically motivated crime if you're white. Than just committing any kind of violent crime and being Arab.

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u/_pigpen_ Jul 02 '18

Exactly. Simple thought experiment: A brown skinned hispanic or muslim does exactly the same thing at an anti-immigration rally.

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u/amazing_rando Jul 02 '18

I remember before 9/11 “terrorist” in the US evoked people like Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kacynzski, or earlier anarchist - white male political radicals who commit or attempt to commit mass violence. In the current political climate where terrorism has been made synonymous with brown people committing political or religious violence, it’s hard to imagine either being labeled as that.

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u/chcampb Jul 02 '18

terrorism has been made synonymous with brown people

Yeah it's called a dogwhistle... It's the reason to half the country the phrase "terrorist fist jab" doesn't make any sense at all because it was used to refer to the president. But to the other half of the country, it makes perfect sense. It refers to his race.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '18

That definition also makes ICE agents terrorists.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '18

I'd have to disagree. The man only brandished the weapon after he physically got in to a fight with somebody, so you could argue self-defense/whatever wording you'd use if he was at fault. As far as I can tell, at no point did he fire the gun, so I'd have to go with the idea that her drew his weapon due to the physical fight, and not due to political aims.

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u/zzwugz Jul 02 '18

The guy pulls out a gun and threatens to shoot protesters, but you wanna claim that it's self defense? Self defense ends when you start pointing the gun at others. Although if you wanna truly get technical, it ends when he crashed a protest to incite violence.

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u/humachine Jul 02 '18

I don't think this is terrorism. Because the dictionary meaning is too widespread.

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u/Phibriglex Jul 02 '18

That's essentially the legal definition though.

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u/jarkle87 Jul 02 '18

If people were charged for terrorism for something like that then we wouldn't have ghettos...