Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Rioter in Kenosha pulls a gun on a reporter...

Twitter screen grab via Townhall.

One of the most shocking things I saw last night in the coverage of the Kenosha riot involved Elijha Schaffer, a reporter with The Blaze, a conservative news outlet. Schaffer was covering the riot when a rioter he was walking with threatened the police, pulled out a gun, and pointed it at the reporter. He didn't fire but it was a crazy moment.






Townhall, another admittedly conservative outlet has coverage of the incident here, but I just wanted to make a few comments. First of all, this was a very serious crime. I know because I served on a jury where we sent someone to jail for pointing a gun at someone. I didn't believe that that person wanted to kill the person he pointed a gun at, but regardless, it's a crime to point a gun at someone in Wisconsin, a class A misdemeanor. This guy is just as guilty and given the evidence I wouldn't have any problem throwing him in jail.

Second, this is about as reckless behavior I have seen with a gun in a long time, maybe ever. The man in this case violated just about every gun safety law in the book. He did have trigger discipline but it's still horrible to point a gun at someone given the decent chance that it could result in a death or injury.

Third, the man was threatening police with a gun for basically no reason. I guess nothing happened in response but it's crazy to me that people are so worked up over what seems to me to be a pretty bog-standard police shooting. Why would you throw your life away over a criminal that didn't even die? Because if this guy started to shoot at cops he would be dead.

I hope that the national news coverage that this incident is receiving will help identify this man. I live in Wisconsin and though I am not anywhere near Kenosha I am worried that I share a state with someone dumb enough to point a gun at someone to make a point. I hope police find and arrest this man.

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