Travis Corcoran is young man from Arlington, Massachusetts. He is the owner of an online comic retailer based in Arlington, and he is also a blogger who posts under the moniker TJIC. Similar to myself, Travis usually identifies himself as an anarcho-capitalist, albeit a little bit further out on the edge than I am.
Recently, in the highly charged days following the shooting of Representative Giffords in Arizona, Travis placed a post on his blog where he expressed a profound lack of regret over what happened to Mrs. Giffords. His main concern following the shooting was that anyone else who wanted to take a shot at a politician do so in a more controlled manner, and not kill bystanders, especially not 9 year old girls. Mr. Corcoran then showed what could be construed as 'poor' judgment and titled his post '1 down, 534 to go'. For those of you who don't know...there are 535 members of Congress.
I'm not sure how many visitors a day Trevor got to his blog, but I am sure it was a higher number than the 25 a day I get to my blog. I do this just as much for myself as I do it for any hopes of ever getting as popular as Tamara or Commander Zero. By linking his blog through his comic book store, Trevor expanded the audience of his blog, but linked his professional life to his personal opinions. As a result of expressing his 'strong' opinions, Trevor was targeted by several comic book writers who didn't want him to sell their stuff, and buyers who didn't want to buy from him...in effect, a boycott.
I am fine with that. If you want to express an opinion about something controversial, and link them to your professional persona, you risk making yourself a target for something like this. Shift public opinion, and people will vote with their wallets...it is no different than when us pro-2nd Amendment folks get all upset at stores for not carrying ammo anymore, or Smith & Wesson for 'The Betrayal'. It's how a Capitalist Society is supposed to work.
What I am not fine with is what happened next. The Arlington Police Department, after receiving reports of what Trevor posted on his blog, knocked on his door, and seized a 'large amount' of weapons and ammunition, and have suspended his Massachusetts Firearms License, pending an investigation into his 'suitability' as a firearms owner. The length of the suspension and whether he will get his guns and license back at all will depend on the determined credibility of the threat represented.
Following every unfortunate mass occurrence of stupidity, through the 20/20 vision of hind sight, there are pointers and signs that were not properly acted on, that if they had been, might have prevented a tragedy. I understand that law enforcement feels the need to take action to prove that they are protecting people, and in Massachusetts, that action might be more anti-gun related than in other locations.
Being a realist, I can not blame the police for taking SOME action. If they had wanted to open a case on him, shadow him, run a stake out on him...that's fine. Do some police work, determine if the person in question is a threat, and arrest HIM! Don't just take away his guns and deny him his right for self-defense to punish him. If he is that big a threat that you needed to take away his guns, why is he still walking the streets?!?! There are many ways to represent a threat to society(and politicians) that are not firearms related.
Earlier in the week, I had written up a post with my opinion about the Arizona shooting, mostly trying to reconcile the horrible things that happened in Arizona(including the death of a 9-year old girl, which hits this parent of an 8-year old girl hard) with my guilt-free enjoyment of reading certain books in which bad things happen to bad politicians. After getting most of the way through a quite long post, I hit the delete button. My wife expressed reservations that I might come off 'wrong' with my post, and while I felt I was inside the box...I didn't want to push it. There was no reason too...NO ONE thinks that what that crockpot did in Arizona was right. The books I enjoyed reading were full of bad things happening to bad politicians, who are attacked for doing bad things. Representative Giffords was attacked for NO REASON. She was not a bad politician. She might have had different ideological beliefs than me, but that does not make her bad(wrong, but not bad).
Anyway...I would like to think that nothing I would have said would have resulted in the Tri-Cities Herald having an article in the paper about the Richland Police seizing a 'VERY large amount' of weapons and ammo from an apartment in North Richland. I suppose in the end, as a husband and a father, I owe it to my family to err on the side of caution when things have the potential to become heated, and wrongly/aggressively interpreted by law enforcement agencies.
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