Pertinent to the 2nd Amendment conversation, the man allegedly was carrying a gun legally. EDIT: A holstered handgun. He clearly has a phone in his hand and is recording. They're saying he reached...
Pertinent to the 2nd Amendment conversation, the man allegedly was carrying a gun legally. EDIT: A holstered handgun. He clearly has a phone in his hand and is recording. They're saying he reached for it but that does not match the video. Also, it appears DHS has contaminated evidence because the picture of the gun they shared was in a vehicle.
(I will not watch the video and encourage folks to watch only if they doubt what this was. Protect yourself. )
From still images it looks like they even disarmed him before murdering him. And like he was protecting the women beside him by keeping himself in DHS' faces and his body between then. Thanks for...
We were taught to restrain somebody we suspected of having a weapon, remove it from their person, and then interact with the police to arrange for detention. Not pull our own service weapons and execute the person if we saw a weapon.
From still images it looks like they even disarmed him before murdering him. And like he was protecting the women beside him by keeping himself in DHS' faces and his body between then.
Thanks for the range safety officer info, that is what I'd have expected for the term but it's absolutely being used to mislead alongside the outright lies about the victim and the situation.
I have been crying about this since getting home today..I do not like where my anger takes me right now, and so grief is better.
Bingo! They have always and only been for guns for themselves. “Others” do not qualify and they have no empathy for the current moment nor ability to see this coming for them someday. One thing I...
But the 2A crowd are the ones who seemingly wanted this. My fear is that they'll just say 'ha another lib' as opposed to seeing him as a person like they are.
Bingo! They have always and only been for guns for themselves. “Others” do not qualify and they have no empathy for the current moment nor ability to see this coming for them someday.
One thing I have seen over and over is that a lot of conservatives cannot understand something without experiencing it firsthand. You can look at farmers not wanting bailouts for others until it hurts them personally then they do. There is always a reason they deserve the same something others shouldn’t get. Again, complete lack of empathy.
Fixating on the guns as some sort of talisman that accomplishes resistance and self defense all on its own has always been deeply unserious lifestyle marketing. The “well organized” is the key...
I was never a great believer in well organized militias rising up against a tyrannical government, given that tyrannical government has weapons that make small-arms useless.
Fixating on the guns as some sort of talisman that accomplishes resistance and self defense all on its own has always been deeply unserious lifestyle marketing. The “well organized” is the key element of being effective. If you’re in a sufficiently thorny situation guns certainly are a tool in the toolkit, but they can only be turned to pro-social uses if they’re part of a broader civic/community self defense group. Otherwise you’re just some random dude who is going to commit suicide by cop.
Gun nuts get all fixated on what kind of kit to have and their bug out bags and having $5,000 worth of accessories hanging off their rifles and it’s all just consumerist slop. The organizational capacity and thick community networks are what actually buttress a resistance. Keeping people fed and supplied, being able to provide financial support and legal protections for people targeted by the regime (or who survive its victims), being present to watch and record what’s going on as Minnesotans have done. That’s the real shit, and it’s all coming way upstream of any kind of shooting battle.
This has never been true and is based on a very flawed understanding of how you win in wars/revolutions/combats. A large number of lightly armed people is basically the most desirable thing in any...
I was never a great believer in well organized militias rising up against a tyrannical government, given that tyrannical government has weapons that make small-arms useless.
This has never been true and is based on a very flawed understanding of how you win in wars/revolutions/combats.
A large number of lightly armed people is basically the most desirable thing in any conflict, doubly so if they know the terrain. Just about every revolution was based on this, and we have more recent examples in pretty much every war/conflict since WWII.
That doesn't mean it's bloodless, but there's no magic tech that makes 10,000 armed people NOT a threat.
My comment is based on the lived understanding of people who served front lines in Desert Storm, Vietnam, and Afghanistan/Iraq. I will absolutely admit I have no personal experience but I am flat...
Your comment wasn't phrased politely, and was a pretty poor opener to a thesis that's based more on myth, Hollywood, and video games than it is in a real life understanding of how armed insurgency works, and how American state power is brought to bear against it.
My comment is based on the lived understanding of people who served front lines in Desert Storm, Vietnam, and Afghanistan/Iraq. I will absolutely admit I have no personal experience but I am flat out quoting people who have. If you're willing to go second hand several of those people had family who were on the ground in Japan during WWII. I also have spoken to a few people who fought and fled from Eastern Europe.
I do not intend to glorify the reality. People will die in the hundreds of thousands if not more should things go violent. It doesn't change the US, who you very accurately pointed out has developed thousands of very effective ways to kill resistance members, still lost a couple hundred thousand in Vietnam and 4k in Iraq. Ukraine is easily in the 5 figure territory if not a lot more depending on your sources.
The most likely group to form an armed resistance to the current US government that actually poses mortal danger would be those who kept arms of a sufficient power to defeat body armor, or engage targets from ambush distance in either urban or rural settings. The main group that owns these kind of weapons in the United States are not organised in opposition against the current regime, but, rather, are its supporters.
Absolutely, and one of the reasons I can't begin to take most people seriously. If you're swearing up and down that the current administration is about to be coming door to door to murder you (as they clearly fucking are now), why in the hell is the most you're doing about it posting on twitter? Are we hoping that the people who have literally laid out their plans to topple the government will be stopped by THIS Waltz speech? How many times do people need to see the photos of a bunch of armed men standing in Michigan's state capital to get the point that suddenly things are handled differently when EVERYONE is armed, even if they're all a bunch of fucking idiots (as they certainly were).
Taking your hypothetical 10,000 armed people who, you are below, comparing to 'infantry', what's their organizational formation? Do they have a uniform C2 structure? By what means are they 'taking and holding ground', especially if they're in a contested environment? What training and doctrine are they using? Someone walking around with a gun is not an infantry asset. A group of people walking around with guns without coordination are just targets.
10,000 was an arbitrary point but sure. The answer is, the bare minimum. Why assume more? We both know they're not going to have it. However given it's 3,000 ICE members deployed to MN, that's 3-1 numbers advantage against a much better equipped and barely better trained force. If there were any real desire to resist beyond recording murder, Alex might be alive. Instead we have someone being murdered in hi res from 2 angles. If people want to stop seeing that, they need to do something more, and it isn't sit back and watch people die while rolling over for Nazi's. If you don't want to be violent, fine I get that, but I tire of the argument that there's literally nothing that could be done.
This hypothetical already strains credulity because armed opposition in America is not organised. But for now, we'll say they quickly develop a clear leadership structure, and prioritised goals they're attempting to achieve through armed force.
Let's be even more charitable and say they've split into distinct cells with distinct objectives, and handwave away the fact that domestic security agencies likely know who they are. They start carrying out armed resistance - maybe ambushes, maybe infrastructure attacks, but you specified 'wars' and 'revolutions', so I'll assume their goals are higher than running an effective resistance (resistance is a delaying tactic designed to play for time and hinder a regime until outside help arrives in the form of military force, which is so unlikely it's not really worth discussing).
This group of 10,000 is in America. They've taken a town/building/arms cache/facility/etc. How do you suppose they'd overcome persistent federal government ISR, during or after their operation? What about precision fires?
If we want to escalate to full out civil war fine, that's a totally different subject than what's currently going on (3000 armed people bullying and murdering people). And yes we are very much on the precipice of that kind of escalation. We both know that if somehow that happened its not 10k vs the entire US, and so its hard for me to take this in remotely good faith. Yes the full might of the US military can snuff out 10k people in a heart beat. There's about 2 million active military members, the US has 340 million people. A 1% armed rate would equal 3.4 million. That's a totally different ball game before you even get into the utter nightmare that follows
I'm sorry to come across as so blunt, but you asserting that I am basing my comment on 'a very flawed understanding of how you win in wars/revolutions/combats' is like me saying you don't understand computers or programming or whatever it is that you do.
That's fine. I don't think I'm the end of knowledge on the subject. I just think it's laughable that everyone's default is "oh well we cannot win because nukes" or whatever excuse they use to make sure they can sit and comment online without having to take the bare minimum of steps to make sure the next Alex isn't someone they know. We've been watching this coming for most of my adult life and yet so many people who swore up and down the Nazi's were coming have also decided that the best resistance is being angry on the internet.
I'm not some libertarian who thinks society is better if everyone is armed. It's not. It's objectively more dangerous for everyone involved, but I just can't take seriously anyone who's spent 10 years crying Nazi but still thinks there's literally nothing to be done other than record atrocities. We've seen how that pans out, it doesn't. We got a democratic reprieve, it did next to nothing. Is the real answer then that "well we better all buckle up and keep our heads down because we've already lost and the next Alex might be you?" Is that the stance you're proposing?
Your comment wasn't phrased politely, and was a pretty poor opener to a thesis that's based more on myth, Hollywood, and video games than it is in a real life understanding of how armed insurgency works, and how American state power is brought to bear against it.
It wasn't polite, it's not based on myth. I'm well aware of what you're referring to and again all I can say is I very much trust the experience and positions of the people I've learned this knowledge from and the material and experiences they've referenced for it. I get how you can see it as the more glorified "Libertarian" tripe that gets spouted out by people in camo who can't even figure out trigger discipline, but for what it's worth I think those people are idiots too.
The scenario you propose is the lowest end of armed conflict that the US military and its domestic-based Guard units train and prepare for. It is the most dangerous scenario that federal agencies base their capability acquisition, surveillance priorities, and positioning.
I mostly agree but think you're talking past me.
This not magic tech. It's 20 years of experience in how to defeat a large number of people with guns, with minimal loss of friendly forces, coming home.
Yes, and that's something that people should be aware of and worried about. But if your stance sincerely is "welp we're fucked" then ok. I disagree. I'm pretty damn sure at some point people have to ask themselves if they're around for the next ICE murder if they want cameras or weapons.
A few scattered thoughts (for both you and GP): I do agree that widespread civilian gun ownership aren’t an instant win, but civilians having absolutely no firearms likely makes things harder. A...
A few scattered thoughts (for both you and GP):
I do agree that widespread civilian gun ownership aren’t an instant win, but civilians having absolutely no firearms likely makes things harder.
A lot of techniques related to counterinsurgency for the U.S. military implicitly assume a safe homefront with reliable supply chains. Once things begin to pop off, that reliability is no longer assured. Even a minor attacks against, say, an ammunition plant mean a period of downtime and possibly reduced quality product after.
Related to (2), the model for an insurgency happening in the U.S. is the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Both sides viewed it as their home, there was relatively free movement between the Republic, Northern Ireland, and Mainland Britain, with the ability of operatives to melt away. Escalation was relatively limited for the British, because of fears of radicalizing otherwise uninvolved Catholics and not wanting to rule over bombed out husk.
In urban areas especially, the risk of snipers is under-discussed with respect to morale, cost of enforcement, and widespread availability of bolt-action rifles.
And yet there seem to be a lack of them being used. Even in Ukraine. If we want to get into the weeds of this discussion, fine, but the long and short of it is that nukes are A logistical...
And yet there seem to be a lack of them being used. Even in Ukraine.
If we want to get into the weeds of this discussion, fine, but the long and short of it is that nukes are
A logistical nightmare
A instant level of escalation the worlds only seen once when no one else could
Infinitely destructive to every single thing in its radius and of course comes with the joys of fallout.
You can't "nuke" 10,000 people without killing all 100,000 around them and runing the area for the next decade. You can't nuke a city without fundamentally erasing it an killing EVERY person there, not just the ones fighting.
Nuking your own country is, at its core, suicide as the moment the debris clears and your economy is done collapsing your allies and enemies will be deciding how to divvy up what's left of you IF you didn't make them nervous enough to glass the continent.
Infantry, even lightly armed, can take and hold land, don't need to annihilate infrastructure, and can disperse and blend in.
Hell even suggesting a nuke as the counter here shows a lack of understanding. If you're going to pop the WMD cork for large groups of infantry Chemical and Bio weapons are a hell of a lot more effective and reasonable (and thus we've seen recent use of chemical weaponry on revolting populace and in modern conflicts).
That seems extreme even for Trump. Not sure how MAD comes into play when a nuclear power detonates a warhead on its own people, but I’d like to think no one, however depraved, would ever authorize...
That seems extreme even for Trump. Not sure how MAD comes into play when a nuclear power detonates a warhead on its own people, but I’d like to think no one, however depraved, would ever authorize that, and certainly that no personnel, having received such an order, would obey it.
It's part of a strategy to prevent themselves from being identified as ICE agents by the communities they target, and to sow distrust and anxiety overall. I'm a rapid responder in my area, and...
Side note: the fact that their gear all says 'Police' I assume is a deliberate tactic to appeal to society's trust in police officer
It's part of a strategy to prevent themselves from being identified as ICE agents by the communities they target, and to sow distrust and anxiety overall. I'm a rapid responder in my area, and it's extremely challenging to get a reasonable noise to signal ratio from community hotline calls because they drive unmarked cars, do not wear identifying badges or insignias, and refuse to identify themselves. Actually, rapid responders can almost always identify ICE (if we're able to speak to them) because they're typically the only law enforcement group that refuse to identify themselves (often even refusing to say whether they're law enforcement).
Many times have I been to the gun range across from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center where all the DHS LEOs have to go to do training hours (they used to do a lot of GroupOns). It’s...
Because there hasn't been an organization like ICE in my lifetime, I have no idea what their protocols are like, but being a trained Range Safety Officer does not mean this individual had any experience or proficiency with encountering firearms operationally.
Many times have I been to the gun range across from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center where all the DHS LEOs have to go to do training hours (they used to do a lot of GroupOns).
It’s pretty bleak man. It was profoundly concerning for me to learn that my prior experience of playing a lot of Duck Hunt and Time Crisis as a kid has somehow made me a better marksman than the median CBP or ICE dude. But more than that, people are just wildly cavalier about waving their guns around, leaving their service weapons unsecured, etc.
And this was all during the Obama administration. Literally everything has gotten worse since then.
This lines up with the version of events I felt was most likely - person had a holstered firearm, they (one of them) saw it (almost certainly still holstered, next most likely is they knocked it...
This lines up with the version of events I felt was most likely - person had a holstered firearm, they (one of them) saw it (almost certainly still holstered, next most likely is they knocked it out of the holster in the dogpile and it spills on to the ground), person A in the dogpile maybe shouts "GUN GUN GUN" or something to that effect happens (not sure if the videos have audio to confirm or rule this out), person B in the dogpile hears 'GUN' and draws and fires. A lot.
Or some series of events analogous to that. That is what I felt was most probable, neither painting ICE in the absolute worst light (that's the version where they just killed someone and plant a gun on him, sounds like that isn't the situation if we know he had a licence to carry then there will be ownership record of that particular pistol) nor does it paint ICE in the best light (person actually draws on them and they have a clean self-defense situation, which from what I've seen of the video with 6 people already pinning him to the ground 99.99% rules that out for me).
Edit: updated information is saying ICE removed the firearm from his holster, disarming him, and then shot him. That is now worse than what I thought the most likely scenario was.
Under-trained and outright untrained people who sought out the power and permission commit violence and be paid for doing so, given anonymity and told they are above the law ..."absolute immunity"... the only surprise to me is that we haven't already seen MUCH worse than this. I will not be surprised when just one of ICE in a mob of them gets twitchy, pulls and fires with a pistol or rifle on a crowd, and then all the ICE personnel follow suit. A modern-day Kent State event, but so much worse.
I fully agree with not watching the video! It’s really bad, and has ruined my brain for a while. Here’s the statement the DHS released about the shooting, again from the Star Tribune (the...
I fully agree with not watching the video! It’s really bad, and has ruined my brain for a while.
Here’s the statement the DHS released about the shooting, again from the Star Tribune (the reporters there are doing great work!)
> "An individual approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun," the agency said in a statement. "The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted."
>
> "Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots," the department's statement continued. "Medics on scene immediately delivered medical aid to the subject but was pronounced dead at the scene."
That phrasing is doing a lot of work. They're obviously regretting the discourse around Renee Good. But the videos I've seen are a lot of officers milling around, not rushing to render aid....
immediately delivered medical aid
That phrasing is doing a lot of work. They're obviously regretting the discourse around Renee Good. But the videos I've seen are a lot of officers milling around, not rushing to render aid.
Granted... with that number of shots fired at that range it seems dubious that there would be any aid to render. But that just makes it feel even more like the opening salvo of the PR war over whether this man deserved to die because he had a weapon on his person in the presence of an officer.
After watching the stabilized footage - this was nothing short of an execution. The shooter was standing directly over the victim, watched another fed take the gun and walk way, then proceeded to...
After watching the stabilized footage - this was nothing short of an execution.
The shooter was standing directly over the victim, watched another fed take the gun and walk way, then proceeded to start firing into the back of an unarmed man (who had alread been pepper sprayed directly in the face at point blank range) being held down and beat in the head by at least 3 other agents.
This is pure evil and tryanny at work. If this type of behavior is allowed to continue, there is no chance that America can save itself from its descent into full-blown fascism.
I'm fucking scared, y'all. Mind you, not of ice agents, they're cowardly pieces of shit, but I am scared of where this is going. This is my community. My community is being murdered and abducted,...
I'm fucking scared, y'all. Mind you, not of ice agents, they're cowardly pieces of shit, but I am scared of where this is going. This is my community. My community is being murdered and abducted, the federal government is causing it, and the state government is doing fucking NOTHING to stop it. I'm watching fascism go into full swing here and those with any power are just doing fucking nothing while we suffer.
I really don't know what to do, man. I'm doing what I can to help my community, but this is scary shit.
It may be too late and I forgot about this until now, for folks who watched the video or if you get surprised by this video later, consider playing Tetris within 30 minutes - 4 hours of the...
Exemplary
It may be too late and I forgot about this until now, for folks who watched the video or if you get surprised by this video later, consider playing Tetris within 30 minutes - 4 hours of the traumatic experience. It helps prevent flashbacks.
The Tetris effect has been explored as a potential tool for alleviating trauma-related symptoms, particularly in the context of Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A study conducted by Iyadurai et al in 2010[12] hypothesised that playing Tetris would disrupt consolidation of sensory elements of trauma memory following a motor vehicle accident. Results vindicated the efficacy of the Tetris-based intervention as there were fewer intrusive memories overall and the frequency of these memories decreased rapidly over time, despite reminding individuals of the traumatic events faced. These reminder cues followed by the interference task of playing Tetris competes for cognitive resources with the traumatic memory, disrupting the consolidation process of the traumatic memory traces, reducing their intensiveness and emotional impact.
I wonder if this works for other video games. I've found that I generally feel compelled to play simple, high-action games when I'm very stressed or sad (e.g., when a relative has died recently),...
I wonder if this works for other video games. I've found that I generally feel compelled to play simple, high-action games when I'm very stressed or sad (e.g., when a relative has died recently), even though I normally strongly prefer slow-paced strategy games.
I believe it's more about focusing on the screen with the repetitive shapes and motion. I remember after playing Tetris or Doctor Mario for a long time I'd see the shapes as I was falling asleep...
I believe it's more about focusing on the screen with the repetitive shapes and motion. I remember after playing Tetris or Doctor Mario for a long time I'd see the shapes as I was falling asleep and feel like I was playing the game behind closed eyelids.
So I wouldn't say it works on any game, dissociating/distracting oneself is another strategy though. Similar games to Tetris are much more likely to have the effect but to my knowledge they've only tested Tetris.
Many of the fast-paced games I play while stressed have simplistic graphics (usually pixel art) that involve a lot of dodging around abstract shapes and colors (representing magic effects) — games...
Many of the fast-paced games I play while stressed have simplistic graphics (usually pixel art) that involve a lot of dodging around abstract shapes and colors (representing magic effects) — games like Heroes of Hammerwatch and Noita. I get into an altered flow state where I stop seeing the individual enemies/missiles/etc. coming at me, and instead see the whole screen as a kind of abstract, changing image that I'm subtly (or not-so-subtly) manipulating through precise movements. It definitely affects me while I'm falling asleep in the way you're describing!
.... this might legit explain why I've been compelled to play Arc Raiders all weekend. I already know that games are one of my coping mechanisms, and have been for decades. This weekend though,...
.... this might legit explain why I've been compelled to play Arc Raiders all weekend. I already know that games are one of my coping mechanisms, and have been for decades. This weekend though, the need to go dissociate and focus on not-real-world things is extra strong.
The thing that’s eating me up about all of this is that local law enforcement is ABSENT. Ordinary people should not have to face off against ICE. Police, real police, need to step up and serve and...
The thing that’s eating me up about all of this is that local law enforcement is ABSENT. Ordinary people should not have to face off against ICE. Police, real police, need to step up and serve and protect their communities.
I get it, they don’t want to get in the way of feds. But I think they have a moral duty to do exactly that. Minneapolis PD could and should have sent their own SWAT team out to lawfully arrest these thugs. Let them stand trial in court, like we do in America.
Trump’s MO is “better to ask forgiveness than permission” (but let’s be honest, he never asks forgiveness either). Throw a legal and ethical hand grenade into a crowd and let the lawyers sort it out later. So it’s time for the local cops to grow a spine and do the same. Show up in greater numbers, lock up the miscreants, and let the justice system sort it out.
I don’t care if the justice system completely absolves the agents in court. Hell, we all know Trump will just pardon them anyway. That’s why they’re acting untouchable in the first place, because they literally have a get out of jail free card. But in the meantime, if innocent lives can be saved, they must. ICE is escalating violence, and an escalation of resistance is warranted in turn. And necessary, I’d argue, if only to get this situation to break through the noise and get regular people to give a damn about what’s happening.
It’s great that people are blowing whistles, recording, and shaming. They also need to be flooding 911 with reports of gang violence, breaking and entering, homicide, impersonating law enforcement officers, and so on. Demand police response.
I don't know what the local law enforcement can do about ICE directly. It's not just about legally having to "stay out of the way". If they send a SWAT team or otherwise directly interfere, things...
I don't know what the local law enforcement can do about ICE directly. It's not just about legally having to "stay out of the way". If they send a SWAT team or otherwise directly interfere, things WILL escalate.
Court and pardons aren't even in the equation. The Trump admin will likely treat any proactive response from local police against ICE as an effective declaration of war and institute martial law.
Worst case scenario, Trump sends in the actual military to Minneapolis to "restore order", and the city becomes an actual battlefield as the military and ICE clash with police and locals. Whatever people were saved in that initial act of resistance will be offset by the deaths. Meanwhile tensions erupt all across the country as people either get rightfully outraged about the active invasion of a US city, or yell that the Minneapolis PD's actions fully justified the resulting bloodshed since they see that resistance against ICE as an insurrection. And due to those tensions, more people begin attacking ICE and other federal officers all across the country, spurring Trump to send military to MORE cities. And more military officers are left with the choice of which side of the conflict to support.
In short: civil war breaks out.
The most likely scenario is still him sending military into Minneapolis to "restore order". Maybe it won't escalate to the level of a full-on civil war, but there are infinite other awful possibilities for how that ends.
That's what is so frustrating about this situation. Most immediate responses will end BADLY and result in far more deaths than whoever they'd initially save by acting out. As much as I've fantasized about similar things, I know that it would ultimately just give the Trump admin justification to do even worse. I think even a single ICE agent getting killed or seriously hurt would be enough for him to take that step, no matter who does it.
There is no right response here. The local police can only do what they can to minimize the death toll and try to avoid escalating the situation. At this point, I'm just glad they're also very vocally and publicly opposed to ICE rather than keeping quiet. Their refusal to cooperate with ICE is already pissing off people high up in the federal chain.
On one hand, I think you are right. On the other hand, I keep thinking about anti-Putin protests in Russia in 2011-2013. That turned out to be their last chance. Unfortunately, they did not...
On one hand, I think you are right. On the other hand, I keep thinking about anti-Putin protests in Russia in 2011-2013. That turned out to be their last chance. Unfortunately, they did not succeed. And now they are killing and dying in Ukraine.
I am not an Amercian and I am not sure what you should do. There is definitely a fork in the road, and I can imagine all kinds of future paths. Maybe fighting now would start a civil war, while not fighting can somehow lead to democracy restoration, perhaps via some kind of Gandhian peaceful resistance. Maybe Trump will have a stroke tomorrow, and Vance will turn out to be less bad than we expect him to be. Maybe democrats will simply win the midterms, and things will slowly start to go up from there. But maybe, just maybe, fighting now can somehow lead to democracy restoration, while not fighting will lead to a full-blown Russia-like America for decades to come. Maybe this is it, just like the Russian protests in 2011-2013. We can’t know.
I grew up in communist Czechoslovakia, at the time still occupied by Russians. I can, vaguely and imperfectly, imagine what you are going through. I know it means very little, but I want to express my support and deepest sympathy. I believe that deep down, Americans truly are a freedom-loving nation, and it will show.
Yeah, I have similar worries and thoughts. A civil war might be better than the alternatives (again, I don't want to be the bad guys in World War III). But if the police are the cause for it, that...
Yeah, I have similar worries and thoughts. A civil war might be better than the alternatives (again, I don't want to be the bad guys in World War III).
But if the police are the cause for it, that gives the Trump administration a much more powerful spin angle for however they respond. They can get a lot more support with a narrative about police officers abusing their authority and power to attempt an insurrection against the federal government. They can likely find some way to pull in Minnesota politicians into that narrative, too, and will likely try to figure out how to use that to justify preemptive action in other states.
Just... Anything that can spark a civil war will be bad, but police being the cause would give the Trump administration an advantage.
Yeah, too bad we can’t spin up a bunch of World VMs and test the outcomes of various scenarios. Still, I sometimes wonder how much of history is determined by larger societal forces and how much...
Yeah, too bad we can’t spin up a bunch of World VMs and test the outcomes of various scenarios.
Still, I sometimes wonder how much of history is determined by larger societal forces and how much hangs on total coincidence. For example, would WW2 have happened anyway if one of the assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler in 1934 had succeeded? It sends shivers down my spine to think that our fate could be decided by something as random as Donald Trump turning his head three centimeters on that fateful day when a bullet grazed his ear.
As a Canadian, an American civil war is starting to look like the best scenario we can reasonably hope for. Not my top choice, but I'll take it over having my country invaded.
As a Canadian, an American civil war is starting to look like the best scenario we can reasonably hope for. Not my top choice, but I'll take it over having my country invaded.
Sadly, can't say I fully disagree. I understand the Minneapolis police not wanting to be the potential cause of one, but with how things are going in this country, it almost seems inevitable....
Sadly, can't say I fully disagree. I understand the Minneapolis police not wanting to be the potential cause of one, but with how things are going in this country, it almost seems inevitable. Tensions are only going to get worse... It's only a matter of time before both sides get violent.
I'd still prefer a civil war over being the bad guys in World War III though.
This is a very reasonable and proper take and I would like to add we all know the "protect and serve" statement is just a performative motto police like to throw around but they have a chance now...
This is a very reasonable and proper take and I would like to add we all know the "protect and serve" statement is just a performative motto police like to throw around but they have a chance now to build good will and help us and actually make that a factual statement. The ball is in their court and we desperately need them to pick it up and play. It will be permanently remembered if they don't.
Look at Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem’s outright lies in response to their own agents murdering a peaceful citizen, even in the face of clear video evidence. Look at the funding, decision making,...
Look at Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem’s outright lies in response to their own agents murdering a peaceful citizen, even in the face of clear video evidence. Look at the funding, decision making, and explicit public encouragement they have given to create the situation in the first place.
Now look ahead and realise that these same people will still be running the country when the next elections roll around. This is the time to start considering how to protect those elections from a government that is not beholden to the law, and will use violence, up to and including outright state-sanctioned murder of innocent people without consequence, to get their way.
I’m not the person to suggest how to secure the voting process, because I genuinely don’t know. But if you’re in the US and unable or unwilling to leave, you’re going to need to face the issue of electoral interference far above the level that “oh, but the states control voting, it’s safe from the federal government” will be able to account for. Seems like something worth organising against and planning to mitigate ahead of time, rather than assuming that the people condoning shootings in the street would draw the line at ballot stuffing.
For the sake of accuracy, not that it's fucking okay, I don't really think that's the case (the execution part). It is sadly just pure stupidity and ignorance mixed with the extra ugly "looking...
For the sake of accuracy, not that it's fucking okay, I don't really think that's the case (the execution part).
It is sadly just pure stupidity and ignorance mixed with the extra ugly "looking for an excuse" energy all these fucks have which is as bad if not worse. The murderer firing into the group is fucking insane and just as likely to have killed one of his allies as his target, and clearly did not need to open fire with a pile of people on the guy.
Seeing as how they have no training beyond "hey go fuck people up" its the standard pile of people being violent with no plan (in theory if you're detaining someone dangerous you're supposed to all be on the same page) and low and behold that escalates into murder fast.
The point being, it's arguably even more dangerous to everyone involved because they're just as likely to kill someone they didn't mean to as someone they did. ANY encounter can escalate to murder even assuming "good" intentions on the side of all parties, let alone when you include the obvious malice in these actions.
I don’t think they pistol whipped him exactly, it looked like something else. But they did disarm him by taking the gun from his holster, which is extra damning because he was definitely not armed...
I don’t think they pistol whipped him exactly, it looked like something else. But they did disarm him by taking the gun from his holster, which is extra damning because he was definitely not armed when they killed him, and also if the gun was in his holster the entire time there was no reason to suspect he was a danger.
I don't really have anything useful to add. It's horrifying. Both this time, the last, and the overall frequency of murders. You'd think they would have walked it back for a least a little while...
I don't really have anything useful to add. It's horrifying. Both this time, the last, and the overall frequency of murders. You'd think they would have walked it back for a least a little while after Renee Good.
It's like they're pushing harder, to communicate that yes, they actually can get away with executing people with impunity.
Thread about the aftermath There's now a barricade of trash cans and at least one porch couch and it sounds like more and more residents of the neighborhood and others coming in telling ICE to...
There's now a barricade of trash cans and at least one porch couch and it sounds like more and more residents of the neighborhood and others coming in telling ICE to GTFO, pouring water on tear gassed eyes in -6°F temps and so on.
Thread from a reporter on the scene. Last update around 12:40pm CST as of now.
I am having to step back for myself, this is all so horrid and I start to feel very much like humans don't deserve to exist. So I'll share a live nyt thread that should catch major updates.
I am having to step back for myself, this is all so horrid and I start to feel very much like humans don't deserve to exist. So I'll share a live nyt thread that should catch major updates.
While we were talking about Alex Pretti yesterday, a protest of CHILDREN erupted inside the Texas concentration camp where 5yo Liam Ramos is being held. Video from an attorney on-site captures the...
While we were talking about Alex Pretti yesterday, a protest of CHILDREN erupted inside the Texas concentration camp where 5yo Liam Ramos is being held.
For people wondering what (else) they can do ... It won't happen today, probably not even this year, but sooner or later*, some kind of Nuremberg-class reckoning will come. Between now and then,...
For people wondering what (else) they can do ...
It won't happen today, probably not even this year, but sooner or later*, some kind of Nuremberg-class reckoning will come.
Between now and then, help to preserve the evidence.
Not just the obvious stuff, like the shooters and the videos ... but think also of the people that are actively lying and manipulating the public and misrepresenting the facts right now. I'm thinking of so-called "right-wing influencers", the current crop of Alex Joneses ... with any luck, these people will also be held to account, provided the evidence exists.
*Always assuming society does not collapse entirely.
An interesting thing I just came across on Reddit: The Minnesota subreddit is now banning the use of federal government as a source for information, as it has lost any credibility to the very...
An interesting thing I just came across on Reddit:
Given that the administration has very blatantly proven it has no interest in facts and cares more about pushing a narrative, no matter how false it is, the mod team has discussed it and has decided that the federal government can no longer be considered a reliable source of information. Websites, press releases, reports, etc put forth by the federal government may no longer be used as proof or evidence of facts and attempts to do so will be removed as a violation of Rule 8.
Recommend giving the post a read. It's well articulated in its criticisms of everything happening right now, and opens with a very relevant quote from 1984.
It's fairly minor in the larger picture, but felt like sharing it anyway. At this point, I would love for this to be the start of a larger trend of just completely dismissing anything said by the Trump administration given their history of egregious misinformation.
Go one step further and follow the old "every accusation is a confession" for anything that comes from the GOP. Really, just listen to about anything they say, think about this phrase, and it...
Go one step further and follow the old "every accusation is a confession" for anything that comes from the GOP. Really, just listen to about anything they say, think about this phrase, and it seems to fit.
A reminder to everyone to pay for news you trust. Journalists are also ok the ground and their news desks are putting their necks out everytime they publish. And it doesn't all happen for free....
A reminder to everyone to pay for news you trust.
Journalists are also ok the ground and their news desks are putting their necks out everytime they publish.
And it doesn't all happen for free.
Stay safe and fight for what matters, American friends.
For anyone who feels like they can't have an impact on the current slide toward fascism, this is something you CAN and should do. Find the non-corporate news organizations you trust, and support...
For anyone who feels like they can't have an impact on the current slide toward fascism, this is something you CAN and should do. Find the non-corporate news organizations you trust, and support them any way you can. The impact might not feel immediate, but it will be immediate when the time comes that a journalist is able to cover important news because you helped fund them.
I'm having flashbacks to the police shooting of Philando Castille in Minneapolis in 2016. It doesn't matter if you're legally armed and non-threatening or not, if law enforcement wants to kill...
I'm having flashbacks to the police shooting of Philando Castille in Minneapolis in 2016.
It doesn't matter if you're legally armed and non-threatening or not, if law enforcement wants to kill you. And they can spin the story until they get away with it, no matter how heinous the circumstances.
I want to believe that the conclusive video evidence in the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti would result in accountability for the shooters and withdrawal of the occupying ICE forces. But we don't live in that country anymore, and maybe never have lived there.
Edit: I'm not excusing the relentless lies, Constitutional violations, and egregious violence of the Trump regime. But we've been building up towards this for a while, enabled by racism, lack of accountability, and biased media.
I had just moved to the twin cities a few months before Castille was murdered and I immediately thought of him as well. If legally possessing a gun is reason enough for the state to kill you in...
I had just moved to the twin cities a few months before Castille was murdered and I immediately thought of him as well. If legally possessing a gun is reason enough for the state to kill you in public, we do not actually have a second amendment.
I keep thinking: when will this lead to open armed conflict in the streets? I think the reality is that it basically can't. From comments on Reddit (sorry I didn't do tons of research) MN requires...
I keep thinking: when will this lead to open armed conflict in the streets? I think the reality is that it basically can't.
From comments on Reddit (sorry I didn't do tons of research) MN requires a permit for open or conceal carry (same permit I believe). Commenters also mentions that classes were completely full so you can't even get a permit. It looks like you can buy a gun without that permit (just a background check) but guns intended for hunting are basically exempt from all that.
For an effective deterrent you would need a decent sized group of people, ideally with semi autamatica and maybe something that could defeat basic armor. They would also have to be trained to some degree. Also willing to face the consequences.
The other thought I have is that communication to organize is risky and so is physical movement now. ICE is adding photos of people to their terrorist database or whatever just for protesting and there are flock cameras all over minnesota. I'm just going to guess they have stingrays deployed to gather info on people. Reddit is censoring a lot of comments as soon as they get a bit too violent. I wouldn't trust SMS to be secure. I wouldn't trust FB messenger or WhatsApp. Basically you'd need or want to have secure communication strategies setup ahead of time.
What it comes down to is the fact that to effectively deal with tyrany like this you would have to have been planning and training for this prior to current events... and the kinds of people who did are probably working for ICE or are very small fringe groups.
At the point where armed groups roaming the streets in necessary, permits are not going to be relevant. It's a devolution from standard society to a "you and what army" state. And sadly, yeah it...
At the point where armed groups roaming the streets in necessary, permits are not going to be relevant. It's a devolution from standard society to a "you and what army" state.
And sadly, yeah it looks like that could happen here (or if not MN, the very next state as people elsewhere are no doubt arming up), and worse, I think they're right to.
It's very clear we're at the point where if you're a group at risk of being attacked and murdered by ice, the only deterrent worth a damn will be the old one. Move in large armed groups only. 5-30 people sort of thing. Anything less is tragically gambling with your life.
As with all these kinds of actions, its a numbers game and a bunch of bullies. There's far far far fewer ice agents than people, full stop, so they're not doing shit to a crowd of 400 ready to fight, and that number goes down when there's weapons, especially guns, involved because bullies don't want to get shot back.
I was about to come back and edit my post to add; you only need permits to buy legal guns. I'm in canada (like a lot of tilderinos), I do my best to not associate with criminals, and I have no...
At the point where armed groups roaming the streets in necessary, permits are not going to be relevant
I was about to come back and edit my post to add; you only need permits to buy legal guns.
I'm in canada (like a lot of tilderinos), I do my best to not associate with criminals, and I have no reason TO associate with criminals so I don't. I am pretty certain it would only take me a few days to locate and buy a prohibited weapon.
Right, especially at the point that people like yourself are LOOKING for weapons. There's a large shift when you go from illegal activity to suddenly everyone is telling their friends to come over...
Right, especially at the point that people like yourself are LOOKING for weapons. There's a large shift when you go from illegal activity to suddenly everyone is telling their friends to come over and raid the gun safe from grandpa's collection or time in the war or whatever because "Fuck it we're at least making sure our families are ok"
I don't believe that armed individuals stop the government if they really want to kill people. The Black Panthers didn't end racism, police violence or George Floyd. And this man was murdered. I...
I don't believe that armed individuals stop the government if they really want to kill people. The Black Panthers didn't end racism, police violence or George Floyd. And this man was murdered.
I just think this feels real weird calling it "open season" on a thread about a murder where the man killed did the thing you think people should do.
I deleted the posts. I would like to apologize again for "open season" because that was objectively an insensitive turn of phrase. But yeah, perhaps I'm ill-equipped for this argument.
I deleted the posts. I would like to apologize again for "open season" because that was objectively an insensitive turn of phrase. But yeah, perhaps I'm ill-equipped for this argument.
I don't see how it cant. People will toe the line when following the rules is better than dying. But now theyre breaking into people's houses, attacking citizens and non citizens alike, and...
I don't see how it cant.
People will toe the line when following the rules is better than dying. But now theyre breaking into people's houses, attacking citizens and non citizens alike, and killing more and more people.
If being a citizen doesnt keep you safe, staying in your home doesnt keep you safe, and peacefully getting arrested doesnt keep you safe, people are going to go with whatever other option they have.
I’m happy to see that NYT has updated their headline to “Videos Contradict Federal Accounts of Fatal Shooting”. The NYT uses a passive voice to state the obvious far too often, but I’m glad to...
I’m happy to see that NYT has updated their headline to “Videos Contradict Federal Accounts of Fatal Shooting”. The NYT uses a passive voice to state the obvious far too often, but I’m glad to finally see them report what happened instead of suggesting what happened.
ABC news played a couple of the clips and censored/blurred the part where he got shot (though pretty sure you can still hear the filmer drop an F-bomb). No matter how I look at it, there was no...
ABC news played a couple of the clips and censored/blurred the part where he got shot (though pretty sure you can still hear the filmer drop an F-bomb). No matter how I look at it, there was no danger to them. He was on the ground surrounded by officers. Even if he DID pull a gun like they claim, they could have EASILY stopped him by just stomping on his arm or something else. They were close enough they could easily shoot him without killing him.
Also, I just cursed out the TV when they played a soundbite of Kristi Noem defending the murder. I was fine through all the other coverage, but as soon as I heard the first sentence of her justification for the murder, I snapped and yelled over everything else she said. My throat is actually still a bit sore from shouting.
The one thing I agree with her on (and the sentence that set me off): this didn't have to happen.
Tim Walz's speech was nice at least. I have endless respect for him for being able to still remain civil in this time. He made a nice dig about how he and the other Minnesota officials will remain the "decent people" in the room.
From the NYT: Best case, this gets chalked up to poorly trained, inexperienced, trigger happy ICE agents. Worst (and probably more likely) case we just watched yet another US citizen - no - human...
From the NYT:
Video footage shows Mr. Pretti stepping between a woman and an agent who is pepper spraying her. Other agents then pepper spray Mr. Pretti, who is holding a phone in one hand and nothing in the other. His concealed weapon is found only after he is restrained on the sidewalk, the videos show, and taken from him before the agents opened fire.
Best case, this gets chalked up to poorly trained, inexperienced, trigger happy ICE agents. Worst (and probably more likely) case we just watched yet another US citizen - no - human being - get murdered in the streets for peacefully protesting. In the U.S. It's shocking, yet somehow not surprising.
Yeah...the only reason I called it "best" case is that it might mean that the country isn't yet full swing fascist - that's the "worst" case. Either way, I certainly wasn't trying to make light or...
Yeah...the only reason I called it "best" case is that it might mean that the country isn't yet full swing fascist - that's the "worst" case. Either way, I certainly wasn't trying to make light or diminish the fact that another person was murdered, if it came off like that.
The more I think about it, the more I realize the ICE blitzes in Minneapolis and Maine in the dead of winter are strategically chosen. The Trump regime wants to ensure that people from other...
The more I think about it, the more I realize the ICE blitzes in Minneapolis and Maine in the dead of winter are strategically chosen. The Trump regime wants to ensure that people from other states will avoid reinforcing the resistance, due to distance from bigger population centers and the bitter cold.
I'm heartbroken and furious that I can't join in local protests today, for health reasons. I'm sending every spare dollar to ACLU, Democracy Forward, and various Minneapolis groups, and barraging my elected representatives with calls and e-mails to block further ICE funding, invoke the War Powers Act, promote impeachments, and defend future elections. It feels pathetic and futile, and worth doing anyway.
So the National Guard has been activated by Gov. Walz. WTF? The governor has limited resources at his disposal to protect the people of Minnesota against this lawlessness, and the National Guard...
Gov. Tim Walz and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office requested the guard members deploy to secure the site of the shooting and the Whipple Federal Building, a known immigration authority staging area that’s become a hotspot for protesters, according to the statement.
WTF? The governor has limited resources at his disposal to protect the people of Minnesota against this lawlessness, and the National Guard is the strongest tool legally available to him. We know he speaks out against Trump and his mercenaries. So why the fuck is he directing the guard to protect the goons? Whose side is he actually on?
The unaccountable thugs murdering nonviolent legal observers in the streets are NOT the ones who need protecting right now.
Who has the power to prevent the killing of the next Alex Pretti or Renee Good? Certainly not the phone-carrying bystanders. Innocent people are going to keep dying, because this rabid dog has no leash. SOMEONE INTERVENE. Governor Walz, that starts with you pointing your National Guard in the opposite direction.
The only thing Walz can achieve by deploying the guard is preventing escalation. With the guard in between protesters and ICE, it's much harder for ICE to escalate. This has the effect of...
The only thing Walz can achieve by deploying the guard is preventing escalation. With the guard in between protesters and ICE, it's much harder for ICE to escalate. This has the effect of protecting protesters. If he decided to deploy the guard against ICE, the only effect that would have is that the guard would be immediately nationalized. And that would mean things getting a whole lot worse, because the Supreme Court isn't gonna stop them from being nationalized if they have a great pretext like that.
That’s a fair point. Still I wonder if Trump federalizing the National Guard to do the exact opposite of their objective under the governor would cause them to question their loyalties in any...
That’s a fair point. Still I wonder if Trump federalizing the National Guard to do the exact opposite of their objective under the governor would cause them to question their loyalties in any meaningful way.
Honestly an actual civil war is feeling inevitable at this point. I’d much rather it begin with armed military factions drawing battle lines, than helpless civilians continuing to be fed into a meat grinder while the only people capable of defending them sit on their thumbs.
I watched Walz's Sunday press conference, and he had some very strong words. But to your point, he did say that even if the other side is being lawless, Minnesota should follow the law. So the...
I watched Walz's Sunday press conference, and he had some very strong words. But to your point, he did say that even if the other side is being lawless, Minnesota should follow the law. So the National Guard are there to uphold existing laws, including providing witness to citizens exercising First amendment rights by keeping ICE at a distance.
Someone has to be accountable. Someone has to hold the final decision on this. And sitting behind a keyboard at 2 a.m. and besmirching a VA nurse and a son and a co-worker and a friend is despicable beyond all description.
But what you're seeing is not common sense, lawful or humane enforcement. That's not what this occupation is about.
Let me say our conversation should not be about, and I know we get asked of what we're doing out there, how many state patrol or police or national guard I can put on the street. This isn't about how many people I can put on the street; it's about how many of these people, these ICE agents and whoever else was thrown into this unholy mess, how many Donald Trump can get out of here?
That was the prepared, polite portion. He then took the mic again and said a few more things. I'm failing to find a full text transcript now but I've never seen a politician sound so outright angry.
“I would just give a pro tip to the attorney general. There’s 2 million documents in the Epstein files we’re still waiting on. Go ahead and work on those,”
Also said Minnesota was its own before it was a part of the United States. I don't see Walz backing down.
It's not an unfair reaction on your part, but I'd like to draw attention to the word "secure" at least. Secure for whom, and secure from what? Because making it a safer place to protest helps...
It's not an unfair reaction on your part, but I'd like to draw attention to the word "secure" at least. Secure for whom, and secure from what? Because making it a safer place to protest helps protestors, not ICE. Having the better-trained, better-armed National Guard standing right there to secure the evidence and any suspects next time this happens, helps protests and actively harms ICE.
I don't (immediately) assume this is for ICE's benefit, especially coming from Walz
Their update to acknowledge the death also made it significantly more passive and removed any indication of the perpetrators. Perhaps a hollow gesture, but “Man is shot and killed by ICE officers...
Their update to acknowledge the death also made it significantly more passive and removed any indication of the perpetrators.
Perhaps a hollow gesture, but “Man is shot and killed by ICE officers during Minneapolis immigration crackdown, National Guard activated” at least restores that important detail?
[Edit] Thank you to whoever updated it again - restoring the active voice rather than just adding the detail to the old title is even better!
Yeah, holy shit, the title should be “Innocent man executed in street via macing, beating, and 10+ gunshots from U.S. immigration agents”. Anything less than that level of directness is complicity...
Yeah, holy shit, the title should be “Innocent man executed in street via macing, beating, and 10+ gunshots from U.S. immigration agents”. Anything less than that level of directness is complicity with the DHS lies. There is no room for neutrality here, only factuality vs. propaganda.
The huge crowds of people I’ve seen marching in Minneapolis should escort ICE out of their city. Protesters have been saying things and shown up, but actually doing something will get people to...
The huge crowds of people I’ve seen marching in Minneapolis should escort ICE out of their city. Protesters have been saying things and shown up, but actually doing something will get people to feel the agency they need to keep going.
They can do this non-violently. What else are you going to do when you have 100,000 walking you out of a city and holding a perimeter?
How are large groups of unarmed people going to escort and force ICE out of the city? Agents have taken nonthreatening or barely threatening actions and reacted with deadly force several times....
How are large groups of unarmed people going to escort and force ICE out of the city? Agents have taken nonthreatening or barely threatening actions and reacted with deadly force several times. Grabbing, pushing, shoving agents won't work unless there are a massive amount of people willing to get injured, pepper sprayed, and potentially shot and killed.
I'm not an expert here. I do have some first-hand experience getting non-compliant and mentally unwell people to leave a space, and the key there was being both annoying and patient. I think if...
I'm not an expert here. I do have some first-hand experience getting non-compliant and mentally unwell people to leave a space, and the key there was being both annoying and patient.
I think if you are willing to wait them out they eventually can't do anything but leave. Don't corner them. Make escape easy. I also suspect the social effect of seeing a solid block of thousands of people asking you to leave will help. You'd need good leadership. When people self-organize and ask ICE to leave it ends with aggressive people screaming in their faces, threatening them with their bodies, and escalating towards greater responses of violence.
I'd much prefer this to the alternative where people show up armed and ready to fight. What happens when they call the bluff? Are you going to start a mass casualty event? Massive non-violent actions leave you with a cause more people are willing to join. More people need to practice pacifist anarchy.
Pertinent to the 2nd Amendment conversation, the man allegedly was carrying a gun legally. EDIT: A holstered handgun. He clearly has a phone in his hand and is recording. They're saying he reached for it but that does not match the video. Also, it appears DHS has contaminated evidence because the picture of the gun they shared was in a vehicle.
(I will not watch the video and encourage folks to watch only if they doubt what this was. Protect yourself. )
From still images it looks like they even disarmed him before murdering him. And like he was protecting the women beside him by keeping himself in DHS' faces and his body between then.
Thanks for the range safety officer info, that is what I'd have expected for the term but it's absolutely being used to mislead alongside the outright lies about the victim and the situation.
I have been crying about this since getting home today..I do not like where my anger takes me right now, and so grief is better.
Bingo! They have always and only been for guns for themselves. “Others” do not qualify and they have no empathy for the current moment nor ability to see this coming for them someday.
One thing I have seen over and over is that a lot of conservatives cannot understand something without experiencing it firsthand. You can look at farmers not wanting bailouts for others until it hurts them personally then they do. There is always a reason they deserve the same something others shouldn’t get. Again, complete lack of empathy.
Fixating on the guns as some sort of talisman that accomplishes resistance and self defense all on its own has always been deeply unserious lifestyle marketing. The “well organized” is the key element of being effective. If you’re in a sufficiently thorny situation guns certainly are a tool in the toolkit, but they can only be turned to pro-social uses if they’re part of a broader civic/community self defense group. Otherwise you’re just some random dude who is going to commit suicide by cop.
Gun nuts get all fixated on what kind of kit to have and their bug out bags and having $5,000 worth of accessories hanging off their rifles and it’s all just consumerist slop. The organizational capacity and thick community networks are what actually buttress a resistance. Keeping people fed and supplied, being able to provide financial support and legal protections for people targeted by the regime (or who survive its victims), being present to watch and record what’s going on as Minnesotans have done. That’s the real shit, and it’s all coming way upstream of any kind of shooting battle.
This has never been true and is based on a very flawed understanding of how you win in wars/revolutions/combats.
A large number of lightly armed people is basically the most desirable thing in any conflict, doubly so if they know the terrain. Just about every revolution was based on this, and we have more recent examples in pretty much every war/conflict since WWII.
That doesn't mean it's bloodless, but there's no magic tech that makes 10,000 armed people NOT a threat.
My comment is based on the lived understanding of people who served front lines in Desert Storm, Vietnam, and Afghanistan/Iraq. I will absolutely admit I have no personal experience but I am flat out quoting people who have. If you're willing to go second hand several of those people had family who were on the ground in Japan during WWII. I also have spoken to a few people who fought and fled from Eastern Europe.
I do not intend to glorify the reality. People will die in the hundreds of thousands if not more should things go violent. It doesn't change the US, who you very accurately pointed out has developed thousands of very effective ways to kill resistance members, still lost a couple hundred thousand in Vietnam and 4k in Iraq. Ukraine is easily in the 5 figure territory if not a lot more depending on your sources.
Absolutely, and one of the reasons I can't begin to take most people seriously. If you're swearing up and down that the current administration is about to be coming door to door to murder you (as they clearly fucking are now), why in the hell is the most you're doing about it posting on twitter? Are we hoping that the people who have literally laid out their plans to topple the government will be stopped by THIS Waltz speech? How many times do people need to see the photos of a bunch of armed men standing in Michigan's state capital to get the point that suddenly things are handled differently when EVERYONE is armed, even if they're all a bunch of fucking idiots (as they certainly were).
10,000 was an arbitrary point but sure. The answer is, the bare minimum. Why assume more? We both know they're not going to have it. However given it's 3,000 ICE members deployed to MN, that's 3-1 numbers advantage against a much better equipped and barely better trained force. If there were any real desire to resist beyond recording murder, Alex might be alive. Instead we have someone being murdered in hi res from 2 angles. If people want to stop seeing that, they need to do something more, and it isn't sit back and watch people die while rolling over for Nazi's. If you don't want to be violent, fine I get that, but I tire of the argument that there's literally nothing that could be done.
If we want to escalate to full out civil war fine, that's a totally different subject than what's currently going on (3000 armed people bullying and murdering people). And yes we are very much on the precipice of that kind of escalation. We both know that if somehow that happened its not 10k vs the entire US, and so its hard for me to take this in remotely good faith. Yes the full might of the US military can snuff out 10k people in a heart beat. There's about 2 million active military members, the US has 340 million people. A 1% armed rate would equal 3.4 million. That's a totally different ball game before you even get into the utter nightmare that follows
That's fine. I don't think I'm the end of knowledge on the subject. I just think it's laughable that everyone's default is "oh well we cannot win because nukes" or whatever excuse they use to make sure they can sit and comment online without having to take the bare minimum of steps to make sure the next Alex isn't someone they know. We've been watching this coming for most of my adult life and yet so many people who swore up and down the Nazi's were coming have also decided that the best resistance is being angry on the internet.
I'm not some libertarian who thinks society is better if everyone is armed. It's not. It's objectively more dangerous for everyone involved, but I just can't take seriously anyone who's spent 10 years crying Nazi but still thinks there's literally nothing to be done other than record atrocities. We've seen how that pans out, it doesn't. We got a democratic reprieve, it did next to nothing. Is the real answer then that "well we better all buckle up and keep our heads down because we've already lost and the next Alex might be you?" Is that the stance you're proposing?
It wasn't polite, it's not based on myth. I'm well aware of what you're referring to and again all I can say is I very much trust the experience and positions of the people I've learned this knowledge from and the material and experiences they've referenced for it. I get how you can see it as the more glorified "Libertarian" tripe that gets spouted out by people in camo who can't even figure out trigger discipline, but for what it's worth I think those people are idiots too.
I mostly agree but think you're talking past me.
Yes, and that's something that people should be aware of and worried about. But if your stance sincerely is "welp we're fucked" then ok. I disagree. I'm pretty damn sure at some point people have to ask themselves if they're around for the next ICE murder if they want cameras or weapons.
A few scattered thoughts (for both you and GP):
A nuke
And yet there seem to be a lack of them being used. Even in Ukraine.
If we want to get into the weeds of this discussion, fine, but the long and short of it is that nukes are
You can't "nuke" 10,000 people without killing all 100,000 around them and runing the area for the next decade. You can't nuke a city without fundamentally erasing it an killing EVERY person there, not just the ones fighting.
Nuking your own country is, at its core, suicide as the moment the debris clears and your economy is done collapsing your allies and enemies will be deciding how to divvy up what's left of you IF you didn't make them nervous enough to glass the continent.
Infantry, even lightly armed, can take and hold land, don't need to annihilate infrastructure, and can disperse and blend in.
Hell even suggesting a nuke as the counter here shows a lack of understanding. If you're going to pop the WMD cork for large groups of infantry Chemical and Bio weapons are a hell of a lot more effective and reasonable (and thus we've seen recent use of chemical weaponry on revolting populace and in modern conflicts).
That seems extreme even for Trump. Not sure how MAD comes into play when a nuclear power detonates a warhead on its own people, but I’d like to think no one, however depraved, would ever authorize that, and certainly that no personnel, having received such an order, would obey it.
I don't think it's applicable to the topic of the thread, but to Eji1700's comment it seemed like a glaring omission.
It's part of a strategy to prevent themselves from being identified as ICE agents by the communities they target, and to sow distrust and anxiety overall. I'm a rapid responder in my area, and it's extremely challenging to get a reasonable noise to signal ratio from community hotline calls because they drive unmarked cars, do not wear identifying badges or insignias, and refuse to identify themselves. Actually, rapid responders can almost always identify ICE (if we're able to speak to them) because they're typically the only law enforcement group that refuse to identify themselves (often even refusing to say whether they're law enforcement).
Many times have I been to the gun range across from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center where all the DHS LEOs have to go to do training hours (they used to do a lot of GroupOns).
It’s pretty bleak man. It was profoundly concerning for me to learn that my prior experience of playing a lot of Duck Hunt and Time Crisis as a kid has somehow made me a better marksman than the median CBP or ICE dude. But more than that, people are just wildly cavalier about waving their guns around, leaving their service weapons unsecured, etc.
And this was all during the Obama administration. Literally everything has gotten worse since then.
This lines up with the version of events I felt was most likely - person had a holstered firearm, they (one of them) saw it (almost certainly still holstered, next most likely is they knocked it out of the holster in the dogpile and it spills on to the ground), person A in the dogpile maybe shouts "GUN GUN GUN" or something to that effect happens (not sure if the videos have audio to confirm or rule this out), person B in the dogpile hears 'GUN' and draws and fires. A lot.
Or some series of events analogous to that. That is what I felt was most probable, neither painting ICE in the absolute worst light (that's the version where they just killed someone and plant a gun on him, sounds like that isn't the situation if we know he had a licence to carry then there will be ownership record of that particular pistol) nor does it paint ICE in the best light (person actually draws on them and they have a clean self-defense situation, which from what I've seen of the video with 6 people already pinning him to the ground 99.99% rules that out for me).
Edit: updated information is saying ICE removed the firearm from his holster, disarming him, and then shot him. That is now worse than what I thought the most likely scenario was.
Under-trained and outright untrained people who sought out the power and permission commit violence and be paid for doing so, given anonymity and told they are above the law ..."absolute immunity"... the only surprise to me is that we haven't already seen MUCH worse than this. I will not be surprised when just one of ICE in a mob of them gets twitchy, pulls and fires with a pistol or rifle on a crowd, and then all the ICE personnel follow suit. A modern-day Kent State event, but so much worse.
I fully agree with not watching the video! It’s really bad, and has ruined my brain for a while.
Here’s the statement the DHS released about the shooting, again from the Star Tribune (the reporters there are doing great work!)
The statement from the DHS is so far from the truth it's absolutely sickening.
That phrasing is doing a lot of work. They're obviously regretting the discourse around Renee Good. But the videos I've seen are a lot of officers milling around, not rushing to render aid.
Granted... with that number of shots fired at that range it seems dubious that there would be any aid to render. But that just makes it feel even more like the opening salvo of the PR war over whether this man deserved to die because he had a weapon on his person in the presence of an officer.
After watching the stabilized footage - this was nothing short of an execution.
The shooter was standing directly over the victim, watched another fed take the gun and walk way, then proceeded to start firing into the back of an unarmed man (who had alread been pepper sprayed directly in the face at point blank range) being held down and beat in the head by at least 3 other agents.
This is pure evil and tryanny at work. If this type of behavior is allowed to continue, there is no chance that America can save itself from its descent into full-blown fascism.
I'm fucking scared, y'all. Mind you, not of ice agents, they're cowardly pieces of shit, but I am scared of where this is going. This is my community. My community is being murdered and abducted, the federal government is causing it, and the state government is doing fucking NOTHING to stop it. I'm watching fascism go into full swing here and those with any power are just doing fucking nothing while we suffer.
I really don't know what to do, man. I'm doing what I can to help my community, but this is scary shit.
It may be too late and I forgot about this until now, for folks who watched the video or if you get surprised by this video later, consider playing Tetris within 30 minutes - 4 hours of the traumatic experience. It helps prevent flashbacks.
Tell me more why
It’s called the Tetris Effect!
I wonder if this works for other video games. I've found that I generally feel compelled to play simple, high-action games when I'm very stressed or sad (e.g., when a relative has died recently), even though I normally strongly prefer slow-paced strategy games.
I believe it's more about focusing on the screen with the repetitive shapes and motion. I remember after playing Tetris or Doctor Mario for a long time I'd see the shapes as I was falling asleep and feel like I was playing the game behind closed eyelids.
So I wouldn't say it works on any game, dissociating/distracting oneself is another strategy though. Similar games to Tetris are much more likely to have the effect but to my knowledge they've only tested Tetris.
Many of the fast-paced games I play while stressed have simplistic graphics (usually pixel art) that involve a lot of dodging around abstract shapes and colors (representing magic effects) — games like Heroes of Hammerwatch and Noita. I get into an altered flow state where I stop seeing the individual enemies/missiles/etc. coming at me, and instead see the whole screen as a kind of abstract, changing image that I'm subtly (or not-so-subtly) manipulating through precise movements. It definitely affects me while I'm falling asleep in the way you're describing!
I've observed a similar effect with Pac-Man. My kiddo has described something like that with Minecraft but I can't vouch for that one.
.... this might legit explain why I've been compelled to play Arc Raiders all weekend. I already know that games are one of my coping mechanisms, and have been for decades. This weekend though, the need to go dissociate and focus on not-real-world things is extra strong.
PTSD flashback prevention! @halfloaf got the rest
The thing that’s eating me up about all of this is that local law enforcement is ABSENT. Ordinary people should not have to face off against ICE. Police, real police, need to step up and serve and protect their communities.
I get it, they don’t want to get in the way of feds. But I think they have a moral duty to do exactly that. Minneapolis PD could and should have sent their own SWAT team out to lawfully arrest these thugs. Let them stand trial in court, like we do in America.
Trump’s MO is “better to ask forgiveness than permission” (but let’s be honest, he never asks forgiveness either). Throw a legal and ethical hand grenade into a crowd and let the lawyers sort it out later. So it’s time for the local cops to grow a spine and do the same. Show up in greater numbers, lock up the miscreants, and let the justice system sort it out.
I don’t care if the justice system completely absolves the agents in court. Hell, we all know Trump will just pardon them anyway. That’s why they’re acting untouchable in the first place, because they literally have a get out of jail free card. But in the meantime, if innocent lives can be saved, they must. ICE is escalating violence, and an escalation of resistance is warranted in turn. And necessary, I’d argue, if only to get this situation to break through the noise and get regular people to give a damn about what’s happening.
It’s great that people are blowing whistles, recording, and shaming. They also need to be flooding 911 with reports of gang violence, breaking and entering, homicide, impersonating law enforcement officers, and so on. Demand police response.
I don't know what the local law enforcement can do about ICE directly. It's not just about legally having to "stay out of the way". If they send a SWAT team or otherwise directly interfere, things WILL escalate.
Court and pardons aren't even in the equation. The Trump admin will likely treat any proactive response from local police against ICE as an effective declaration of war and institute martial law.
Worst case scenario, Trump sends in the actual military to Minneapolis to "restore order", and the city becomes an actual battlefield as the military and ICE clash with police and locals. Whatever people were saved in that initial act of resistance will be offset by the deaths. Meanwhile tensions erupt all across the country as people either get rightfully outraged about the active invasion of a US city, or yell that the Minneapolis PD's actions fully justified the resulting bloodshed since they see that resistance against ICE as an insurrection. And due to those tensions, more people begin attacking ICE and other federal officers all across the country, spurring Trump to send military to MORE cities. And more military officers are left with the choice of which side of the conflict to support.
In short: civil war breaks out.
The most likely scenario is still him sending military into Minneapolis to "restore order". Maybe it won't escalate to the level of a full-on civil war, but there are infinite other awful possibilities for how that ends.
That's what is so frustrating about this situation. Most immediate responses will end BADLY and result in far more deaths than whoever they'd initially save by acting out. As much as I've fantasized about similar things, I know that it would ultimately just give the Trump admin justification to do even worse. I think even a single ICE agent getting killed or seriously hurt would be enough for him to take that step, no matter who does it.
There is no right response here. The local police can only do what they can to minimize the death toll and try to avoid escalating the situation. At this point, I'm just glad they're also very vocally and publicly opposed to ICE rather than keeping quiet. Their refusal to cooperate with ICE is already pissing off people high up in the federal chain.
On one hand, I think you are right. On the other hand, I keep thinking about anti-Putin protests in Russia in 2011-2013. That turned out to be their last chance. Unfortunately, they did not succeed. And now they are killing and dying in Ukraine.
I am not an Amercian and I am not sure what you should do. There is definitely a fork in the road, and I can imagine all kinds of future paths. Maybe fighting now would start a civil war, while not fighting can somehow lead to democracy restoration, perhaps via some kind of Gandhian peaceful resistance. Maybe Trump will have a stroke tomorrow, and Vance will turn out to be less bad than we expect him to be. Maybe democrats will simply win the midterms, and things will slowly start to go up from there. But maybe, just maybe, fighting now can somehow lead to democracy restoration, while not fighting will lead to a full-blown Russia-like America for decades to come. Maybe this is it, just like the Russian protests in 2011-2013. We can’t know.
I grew up in communist Czechoslovakia, at the time still occupied by Russians. I can, vaguely and imperfectly, imagine what you are going through. I know it means very little, but I want to express my support and deepest sympathy. I believe that deep down, Americans truly are a freedom-loving nation, and it will show.
Yeah, I have similar worries and thoughts. A civil war might be better than the alternatives (again, I don't want to be the bad guys in World War III).
But if the police are the cause for it, that gives the Trump administration a much more powerful spin angle for however they respond. They can get a lot more support with a narrative about police officers abusing their authority and power to attempt an insurrection against the federal government. They can likely find some way to pull in Minnesota politicians into that narrative, too, and will likely try to figure out how to use that to justify preemptive action in other states.
Just... Anything that can spark a civil war will be bad, but police being the cause would give the Trump administration an advantage.
Yeah, too bad we can’t spin up a bunch of World VMs and test the outcomes of various scenarios.
Still, I sometimes wonder how much of history is determined by larger societal forces and how much hangs on total coincidence. For example, would WW2 have happened anyway if one of the assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler in 1934 had succeeded? It sends shivers down my spine to think that our fate could be decided by something as random as Donald Trump turning his head three centimeters on that fateful day when a bullet grazed his ear.
As a Canadian, an American civil war is starting to look like the best scenario we can reasonably hope for. Not my top choice, but I'll take it over having my country invaded.
Sadly, can't say I fully disagree. I understand the Minneapolis police not wanting to be the potential cause of one, but with how things are going in this country, it almost seems inevitable. Tensions are only going to get worse... It's only a matter of time before both sides get violent.
I'd still prefer a civil war over being the bad guys in World War III though.
This is a very reasonable and proper take and I would like to add we all know the "protect and serve" statement is just a performative motto police like to throw around but they have a chance now to build good will and help us and actually make that a factual statement. The ball is in their court and we desperately need them to pick it up and play. It will be permanently remembered if they don't.
The Star Tribune is reporting that a number of witnesses were taken to the Whipple building - that’s the ICE detention facility.
Apparently they did not get pink jacket lady: https://bsky.app/profile/joshgerstein.bsky.social/post/3md7jvlncyk2c
Look at Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem’s outright lies in response to their own agents murdering a peaceful citizen, even in the face of clear video evidence. Look at the funding, decision making, and explicit public encouragement they have given to create the situation in the first place.
Now look ahead and realise that these same people will still be running the country when the next elections roll around. This is the time to start considering how to protect those elections from a government that is not beholden to the law, and will use violence, up to and including outright state-sanctioned murder of innocent people without consequence, to get their way.
I’m not the person to suggest how to secure the voting process, because I genuinely don’t know. But if you’re in the US and unable or unwilling to leave, you’re going to need to face the issue of electoral interference far above the level that “oh, but the states control voting, it’s safe from the federal government” will be able to account for. Seems like something worth organising against and planning to mitigate ahead of time, rather than assuming that the people condoning shootings in the street would draw the line at ballot stuffing.
Title is from AP. Graphic video link.
It looks like they executed the person. It feels like everything is already in motion and we're just waiting for the whiplash.
This is a summary execution. They pinned him down, pistol whipped him, and then shot him like a dog in the street.
Absolutely inexcusable.
For the sake of accuracy, not that it's fucking okay, I don't really think that's the case (the execution part).
It is sadly just pure stupidity and ignorance mixed with the extra ugly "looking for an excuse" energy all these fucks have which is as bad if not worse. The murderer firing into the group is fucking insane and just as likely to have killed one of his allies as his target, and clearly did not need to open fire with a pile of people on the guy.
Seeing as how they have no training beyond "hey go fuck people up" its the standard pile of people being violent with no plan (in theory if you're detaining someone dangerous you're supposed to all be on the same page) and low and behold that escalates into murder fast.
The point being, it's arguably even more dangerous to everyone involved because they're just as likely to kill someone they didn't mean to as someone they did. ANY encounter can escalate to murder even assuming "good" intentions on the side of all parties, let alone when you include the obvious malice in these actions.
I don’t think they pistol whipped him exactly, it looked like something else. But they did disarm him by taking the gun from his holster, which is extra damning because he was definitely not armed when they killed him, and also if the gun was in his holster the entire time there was no reason to suspect he was a danger.
I thought they were hitting him with a mace canister when I watched it.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what it was too.
This is video taken in the time approaching the execution. Note, the video isn’t graphic, but you can see the victim responding to ICE provocation.
Here's another angle of the execution and the moments leading up to it
I don't really have anything useful to add. It's horrifying. Both this time, the last, and the overall frequency of murders. You'd think they would have walked it back for a least a little while after Renee Good.
It's like they're pushing harder, to communicate that yes, they actually can get away with executing people with impunity.
Thread about the aftermath
There's now a barricade of trash cans and at least one porch couch and it sounds like more and more residents of the neighborhood and others coming in telling ICE to GTFO, pouring water on tear gassed eyes in -6°F temps and so on.
Thread from a reporter on the scene. Last update around 12:40pm CST as of now.
The tentative identification of the victim would make him a nurse for the VA and a legal observer.
Thank you for continuing to update as details come in.
I am having to step back for myself, this is all so horrid and I start to feel very much like humans don't deserve to exist. So I'll share a live nyt thread that should catch major updates.
Fair. We all need to care for ourselves, especially now.
While we were talking about Alex Pretti yesterday, a protest of CHILDREN erupted inside the Texas concentration camp where 5yo Liam Ramos is being held.
Video from an attorney on-site captures the shouts of the children from outside the walls. This article includes more detail and an aerial photograph.
The Minnesota Star Tribune has identified the victim as one Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis resident, ICU nurse, and U.S. citizen.
For people wondering what (else) they can do ...
It won't happen today, probably not even this year, but sooner or later*, some kind of Nuremberg-class reckoning will come.
Between now and then, help to preserve the evidence.
Not just the obvious stuff, like the shooters and the videos ... but think also of the people that are actively lying and manipulating the public and misrepresenting the facts right now. I'm thinking of so-called "right-wing influencers", the current crop of Alex Joneses ... with any luck, these people will also be held to account, provided the evidence exists.
*Always assuming society does not collapse entirely.
An interesting thing I just came across on Reddit:
The Minnesota subreddit is now banning the use of federal government as a source for information, as it has lost any credibility to the very blatant lies about the murder of Alex Pretti.
Recommend giving the post a read. It's well articulated in its criticisms of everything happening right now, and opens with a very relevant quote from 1984.
It's fairly minor in the larger picture, but felt like sharing it anyway. At this point, I would love for this to be the start of a larger trend of just completely dismissing anything said by the Trump administration given their history of egregious misinformation.
Go one step further and follow the old "every accusation is a confession" for anything that comes from the GOP. Really, just listen to about anything they say, think about this phrase, and it seems to fit.
A reminder to everyone to pay for news you trust.
Journalists are also ok the ground and their news desks are putting their necks out everytime they publish.
And it doesn't all happen for free.
Stay safe and fight for what matters, American friends.
For anyone who feels like they can't have an impact on the current slide toward fascism, this is something you CAN and should do. Find the non-corporate news organizations you trust, and support them any way you can. The impact might not feel immediate, but it will be immediate when the time comes that a journalist is able to cover important news because you helped fund them.
I'm having flashbacks to the police shooting of Philando Castille in Minneapolis in 2016.
It doesn't matter if you're legally armed and non-threatening or not, if law enforcement wants to kill you. And they can spin the story until they get away with it, no matter how heinous the circumstances.
I want to believe that the conclusive video evidence in the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti would result in accountability for the shooters and withdrawal of the occupying ICE forces. But we don't live in that country anymore, and maybe never have lived there.
Edit: I'm not excusing the relentless lies, Constitutional violations, and egregious violence of the Trump regime. But we've been building up towards this for a while, enabled by racism, lack of accountability, and biased media.
I had just moved to the twin cities a few months before Castille was murdered and I immediately thought of him as well. If legally possessing a gun is reason enough for the state to kill you in public, we do not actually have a second amendment.
I keep thinking: when will this lead to open armed conflict in the streets? I think the reality is that it basically can't.
From comments on Reddit (sorry I didn't do tons of research) MN requires a permit for open or conceal carry (same permit I believe). Commenters also mentions that classes were completely full so you can't even get a permit. It looks like you can buy a gun without that permit (just a background check) but guns intended for hunting are basically exempt from all that.
For an effective deterrent you would need a decent sized group of people, ideally with semi autamatica and maybe something that could defeat basic armor. They would also have to be trained to some degree. Also willing to face the consequences.
The other thought I have is that communication to organize is risky and so is physical movement now. ICE is adding photos of people to their terrorist database or whatever just for protesting and there are flock cameras all over minnesota. I'm just going to guess they have stingrays deployed to gather info on people. Reddit is censoring a lot of comments as soon as they get a bit too violent. I wouldn't trust SMS to be secure. I wouldn't trust FB messenger or WhatsApp. Basically you'd need or want to have secure communication strategies setup ahead of time.
What it comes down to is the fact that to effectively deal with tyrany like this you would have to have been planning and training for this prior to current events... and the kinds of people who did are probably working for ICE or are very small fringe groups.
Edit: clarify and formatting
At the point where armed groups roaming the streets in necessary, permits are not going to be relevant. It's a devolution from standard society to a "you and what army" state.
And sadly, yeah it looks like that could happen here (or if not MN, the very next state as people elsewhere are no doubt arming up), and worse, I think they're right to.
It's very clear we're at the point where if you're a group at risk of being attacked and murdered by ice, the only deterrent worth a damn will be the old one. Move in large armed groups only. 5-30 people sort of thing. Anything less is tragically gambling with your life.
As with all these kinds of actions, its a numbers game and a bunch of bullies. There's far far far fewer ice agents than people, full stop, so they're not doing shit to a crowd of 400 ready to fight, and that number goes down when there's weapons, especially guns, involved because bullies don't want to get shot back.
I was about to come back and edit my post to add; you only need permits to buy legal guns.
I'm in canada (like a lot of tilderinos), I do my best to not associate with criminals, and I have no reason TO associate with criminals so I don't. I am pretty certain it would only take me a few days to locate and buy a prohibited weapon.
Right, especially at the point that people like yourself are LOOKING for weapons. There's a large shift when you go from illegal activity to suddenly everyone is telling their friends to come over and raid the gun safe from grandpa's collection or time in the war or whatever because "Fuck it we're at least making sure our families are ok"
That's an odd claim in a thread where the man killed was allegedly carrying and that was the justification for the murder.
I don't believe that armed individuals stop the government if they really want to kill people. The Black Panthers didn't end racism, police violence or George Floyd. And this man was murdered.
I just think this feels real weird calling it "open season" on a thread about a murder where the man killed did the thing you think people should do.
I deleted the posts. I would like to apologize again for "open season" because that was objectively an insensitive turn of phrase. But yeah, perhaps I'm ill-equipped for this argument.
I don't see how it cant.
People will toe the line when following the rules is better than dying. But now theyre breaking into people's houses, attacking citizens and non citizens alike, and killing more and more people.
If being a citizen doesnt keep you safe, staying in your home doesnt keep you safe, and peacefully getting arrested doesnt keep you safe, people are going to go with whatever other option they have.
"Can't" is maybe a poor choice of words on my part. I would say either its unlikely or it would be way less effective.
Live NYT story (gift):current headline is from around 5:30pm EST
Minneapolis Live Updates: Videos Appear to Contradict Federal Account of Killing
I’m happy to see that NYT has updated their headline to “Videos Contradict Federal Accounts of Fatal Shooting”. The NYT uses a passive voice to state the obvious far too often, but I’m glad to finally see them report what happened instead of suggesting what happened.
ABC news played a couple of the clips and censored/blurred the part where he got shot (though pretty sure you can still hear the filmer drop an F-bomb). No matter how I look at it, there was no danger to them. He was on the ground surrounded by officers. Even if he DID pull a gun like they claim, they could have EASILY stopped him by just stomping on his arm or something else. They were close enough they could easily shoot him without killing him.
Also, I just cursed out the TV when they played a soundbite of Kristi Noem defending the murder. I was fine through all the other coverage, but as soon as I heard the first sentence of her justification for the murder, I snapped and yelled over everything else she said. My throat is actually still a bit sore from shouting.
The one thing I agree with her on (and the sentence that set me off): this didn't have to happen.
Tim Walz's speech was nice at least. I have endless respect for him for being able to still remain civil in this time. He made a nice dig about how he and the other Minnesota officials will remain the "decent people" in the room.
From the NYT:
Best case, this gets chalked up to poorly trained, inexperienced, trigger happy ICE agents. Worst (and probably more likely) case we just watched yet another US citizen - no - human being - get murdered in the streets for peacefully protesting. In the U.S. It's shocking, yet somehow not surprising.
It's a shame that the "best" and "worst" case are functionally the same, just with a story that lets people dismiss the death.
Yeah...the only reason I called it "best" case is that it might mean that the country isn't yet full swing fascist - that's the "worst" case. Either way, I certainly wasn't trying to make light or diminish the fact that another person was murdered, if it came off like that.
Did not think you were. It's just where we are
The more I think about it, the more I realize the ICE blitzes in Minneapolis and Maine in the dead of winter are strategically chosen. The Trump regime wants to ensure that people from other states will avoid reinforcing the resistance, due to distance from bigger population centers and the bitter cold.
I'm heartbroken and furious that I can't join in local protests today, for health reasons. I'm sending every spare dollar to ACLU, Democracy Forward, and various Minneapolis groups, and barraging my elected representatives with calls and e-mails to block further ICE funding, invoke the War Powers Act, promote impeachments, and defend future elections. It feels pathetic and futile, and worth doing anyway.
From a vigil last night: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8fnWgBs/
I needed it.
Good video I watched recently from an immigration lawyer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkgNnbTrsgw
So the National Guard has been activated by Gov. Walz.
WTF? The governor has limited resources at his disposal to protect the people of Minnesota against this lawlessness, and the National Guard is the strongest tool legally available to him. We know he speaks out against Trump and his mercenaries. So why the fuck is he directing the guard to protect the goons? Whose side is he actually on?
The unaccountable thugs murdering nonviolent legal observers in the streets are NOT the ones who need protecting right now.
Who has the power to prevent the killing of the next Alex Pretti or Renee Good? Certainly not the phone-carrying bystanders. Innocent people are going to keep dying, because this rabid dog has no leash. SOMEONE INTERVENE. Governor Walz, that starts with you pointing your National Guard in the opposite direction.
The only thing Walz can achieve by deploying the guard is preventing escalation. With the guard in between protesters and ICE, it's much harder for ICE to escalate. This has the effect of protecting protesters. If he decided to deploy the guard against ICE, the only effect that would have is that the guard would be immediately nationalized. And that would mean things getting a whole lot worse, because the Supreme Court isn't gonna stop them from being nationalized if they have a great pretext like that.
That’s a fair point. Still I wonder if Trump federalizing the National Guard to do the exact opposite of their objective under the governor would cause them to question their loyalties in any meaningful way.
Honestly an actual civil war is feeling inevitable at this point. I’d much rather it begin with armed military factions drawing battle lines, than helpless civilians continuing to be fed into a meat grinder while the only people capable of defending them sit on their thumbs.
I watched Walz's Sunday press conference, and he had some very strong words. But to your point, he did say that even if the other side is being lawless, Minnesota should follow the law. So the National Guard are there to uphold existing laws, including providing witness to citizens exercising First amendment rights by keeping ICE at a distance.
CBS partial transcript)
That was the prepared, polite portion. He then took the mic again and said a few more things. I'm failing to find a full text transcript now but I've never seen a politician sound so outright angry.
Also said Minnesota was its own before it was a part of the United States. I don't see Walz backing down.
MPR full video
It's not an unfair reaction on your part, but I'd like to draw attention to the word "secure" at least. Secure for whom, and secure from what? Because making it a safer place to protest helps protestors, not ICE. Having the better-trained, better-armed National Guard standing right there to secure the evidence and any suspects next time this happens, helps protests and actively harms ICE.
I don't (immediately) assume this is for ICE's benefit, especially coming from Walz
I have mirrored Associated Press' updated title.
Their update to acknowledge the death also made it significantly more passive and removed any indication of the perpetrators.
Perhaps a hollow gesture, but “Man is shot and killed by ICE officers during Minneapolis immigration crackdown, National Guard activated” at least restores that important detail?
[Edit] Thank you to whoever updated it again - restoring the active voice rather than just adding the detail to the old title is even better!
The use of "crackdown" by media companies has been legitimizing the invasion of Minneapolis (and other cities) by violent DHS agents
This is also a good point
It's frustrating.
At least some of them were using the active voice. I strongly disagree with a "is/was shot and killed" headline
Yeah, holy shit, the title should be “Innocent man executed in street via macing, beating, and 10+ gunshots from U.S. immigration agents”. Anything less than that level of directness is complicity with the DHS lies. There is no room for neutrality here, only factuality vs. propaganda.
The huge crowds of people I’ve seen marching in Minneapolis should escort ICE out of their city. Protesters have been saying things and shown up, but actually doing something will get people to feel the agency they need to keep going.
They can do this non-violently. What else are you going to do when you have 100,000 walking you out of a city and holding a perimeter?
How are large groups of unarmed people going to escort and force ICE out of the city? Agents have taken nonthreatening or barely threatening actions and reacted with deadly force several times. Grabbing, pushing, shoving agents won't work unless there are a massive amount of people willing to get injured, pepper sprayed, and potentially shot and killed.
I'm not an expert here. I do have some first-hand experience getting non-compliant and mentally unwell people to leave a space, and the key there was being both annoying and patient.
I think if you are willing to wait them out they eventually can't do anything but leave. Don't corner them. Make escape easy. I also suspect the social effect of seeing a solid block of thousands of people asking you to leave will help. You'd need good leadership. When people self-organize and ask ICE to leave it ends with aggressive people screaming in their faces, threatening them with their bodies, and escalating towards greater responses of violence.
I'd much prefer this to the alternative where people show up armed and ready to fight. What happens when they call the bluff? Are you going to start a mass casualty event? Massive non-violent actions leave you with a cause more people are willing to join. More people need to practice pacifist anarchy.