#for protesting for gun control

[jaybirdbluelily]

MY AUNT BETTER STAY AWAY FROM POLITICS THIS SUNDAY, OR IM COMING FOR HER HEAD

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Tayo Bero

This month, the Texas state parole board unanimously recommended the pardon and release of convicted killer and former US army sergeant Daniel Perry, along with the restoration of his firearm rights. Perry had been working as an Uber driver in July 2020 when he shot and killed Garrett Foster, a white man who was attending a Black Lives Matter protest with his Black fiancee. Perry was later indicted for murder, tried, convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison by an Austin jury.

Almost a year from the date of his sentencing, Perry’s pardon was granted by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and he now walks free. As terrifying as the initial incident was, this pardon sends a chilling message: that politically motivated killing is OK, and that politicians are more focused on pandering to political pressure than protecting people’s lives.

During Perry’s trial, it emerged that in the weeks before he killed Foster, he had shared white-supremacist memes and talked about how he “might have to kill a few people” who were demonstrating outside his house in 2020. He also compared the Black Lives Matter movement to “a zoo full of monkeys that are freaking out flinging their shit”. And days into nationwide protests sparked by George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, Perry sent a text message saying: “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”

Perry described shooting Foster as an act of self-defense. Yet according to trial testimony about the day Foster died, Perry had seen the predominantly Black group of protesters gathered across the street from him, ran a red light and drove his car right into the middle of the protest. When Foster – who was legally carrying a firearm but had not, according to some eyewitnesses, threatened Perry – approached Perry’s car, he shot him dead and sped away.

In rehashing this horrendous incident, the question on my mind is: how do you justify “pardoning” a person like this? Condemning Perry’s release isn’t about believing in carcerality or wanting to keep people in prisons, mind you; it’s about how we get to this point as a society, whom we grant permission to kill, and how we treat the people involved in a tragedy like this in its aftermath.

Abbott – who rarely issues pardons, and has generally only pardoned low-level, nonviolent offenders – had faced pressure from conservative media figures to grant Perry one. Rightwing pundits like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and even Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi squeezed him publicly about Perry’s conviction. It doesn’t seem like Abbott needed much convincing, though, seeing as he directed the parole board to review Perry’s case just one day after he was convicted.

There’s also the question of how we got here. Foster’s death and his killer’s subsequent pardon are the direct result of a government that’s more beholden to wealthy gun lobbyists than concerned with commonsense legislation that literally saves lives. Foster’s death was, in part, the result of a tragic meeting of Texas’s notoriously loose stand-your-ground self-defense laws, which Perry’s supporters claim he was upholding when he shot Foster, and the state’s “open carry” laws, which Foster was legally exercising when he had his rifle slung over his shoulder during the protest.

Alan Bean, the executive director of the Texas-based civil rights advocacy group Friends of Justice, summed up the implications of Perry’s case succinctly.

“If one guy with a gun feels threatened by another guy with a gun, murder is permissible. If both men felt threatened, the resulting tragedy would technically be ruled a no-fault double-homicide,” he wrote after news of the pardon went public.

Even Texas police aren’t blind to the ways that open-carry laws are exceptionally dangerous and nonsensical. “We were completely opposed to ‘license to carry’ because anytime there’s more guns, there’s a problem,” Ray Hunt, executive director of the Houston police officers’ union, said back in 2021.

If there was any doubt that Abbott doesn’t care how problematic these laws are, even after what happened to Foster, consider that he used his pardon announcement to reaffirm that “Texas has one of the strongest ‘stand your ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney”.

These are scary words to hear from your elected official after a tragedy that could have been avoided with better gun laws. Abbott continues to signal to gun-toting rightwingers that they can go around murdering people they don’t agree with, and that they will have the full force of the law to back them up.

Foster’s mother, Sheila, spoke to the New York Times after the pardon, and her words are haunting in their truth. “It doesn’t make sense,” she said over the phone. “It seems like this is some kind of a political circus and it’s costing me my life.”

[imaginethathaikyuu]

it actually makes me sick to see people share the BDS boycott list but continue to support companies on the list lmao

one of my mutuals just made 3 tweets in a row about getting mcdonalds when a month ago they were making a thread of helpful information, posting the bds list, and tweeting the watermelon emoji

like do you actually give a fuck about whats happening or are you only virtue signaling for retweets? this shit is so fucking mind numbing like im so pissed off and i know im directing my anger at something small retrospectively but how are you going to be a hypocrite in this situation how are you going to pretend to care how are you going to ignore the simple things we’ve been asked to do i want to just scream

when the bare minimum is not supporting corrupt brands, and self proclaimed leftists can’t even do that, how is anything going to change. am i going to be angry for the rest of my life

[kodoandsangha]

If you’re in the DC area, please make your voice heard. The more people, the louder it will be. There’s been 9 mass shootings in 2 days.

[jenthehumanist]

How we've trained our kids - to not protest peacefully

My son (18) asked me what I thought about the video of protestors barricading themselves in a building and then hitting a cop on the head with a large water jug.

I told him that was not a peaceful protest and that what I was taught when I first became an activist is to never resist arrest. Then I told him what my dad told me. Don't ever hang out with people who throw rocks at men with guns. Throwing rocks at men with guns isn't a smart thing to do.

My son stared at me.

Then he said - you know my entire life I've been taught to rush at men with guns and throw things at them and hit them and do whatever you need to do to get the gun away from them. And if you die doing this - at least you may save some of your classmates and friends in the process and die a hero.

WTF!!!!!

This is what he has been taught in every active shooter drill , which is twice a year for the entire time he's been in school. All because instead of keeping guns away from nut cases, we've taught kindergartners and up that if you can't hide from a man with a gun you should rush the gunman and hit them with whatever you have handy.

Cops - in case you were not aware - are men with guns. A man with a gun is a man with a gun, even if they are cops. If they are threatening you - this is what they have been taught to do. And it's the cops who taught them to do this!!!!

These protestors are doing EXACTLY what we've taught young people to do for decades now. If someone with a gun approaches, barricade the door and if they try to enter - hurl things at them - just - mob them as a group and get the gun away from them.

This is insane. This is what conservatives have turned our country into. Every single effing conservative who is complaining about the protests, if you didn't want young people to act this way - you should not have insisted we teach them this heroic fantasies about rushing gunmen like it's some sort of action movie. It would have been safer for everyone - if we just regulated guns!!!!!

For everyone else, be aware, our kids will respond instinctively to a man with a gun - even a cop - exactly as they've been trained to.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[misterlemonztenth]

11-19-23 | twonshawn. misterlemonztenth.tumblr.com/archive

[ryanbrumfield]

[lilicrevere]

I think the reason they don’t ban guns in the USA is because they know that people are too scared to protest enmass as big as we all could is because of the fear of a mass shooting.

Like you already have to worry about cops tear gassing you. And THEN you have to worry about nut jobs who disagree with the movement being willing to kill everyone there.

[honeyrosewitch]

I’m tired of war! It’s everywhere, Everyday, War lurks like A hulking bird, Beating its wings, Beak like a blade Ready to tear The tender flesh Of the innocent.   It makes me sick. The bodies turned To unrecognizable  Things, once loved As friends, family, Beloved and missing, Awaiting burial While bullets hail, Bombs rain down, and Tear what’s left Asunder. Why is the bird Still here? Why Don’t we smite That terrifying beast? Mighty thing that  Defies us all, Makes us like The mauling, hungry Children of beasts. What will the future Say of us When it all Finally falls silent? Monster. War is a monster, And the sowers Of war, The silent bystanders, Are the bastards  Of wretched bloodshed.

[commonsensecommentary]

“The inane belief that the world can be neatly divided into oppressors and the oppressed drives a great deal of our political and cultural dialogue today, but it does not reflect the messy reality of the world we actually inhabit.”

[mylionheart2]

Ban Assault Weapons Now!

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Democratic attorneys general call for federal probe of Greg Abbott pardon | Chron.

By Brooke Kushwaha

Texas Governor Greg Abbott's recent pardon of convicted killer Daniel Perry is now the target of 14 Democratic Attorneys General who are calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the pardon.

The letter penned by New York Attorney General Letitia James and signed by 13 other Democratic Attorneys General urged U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to open a civil rights investigation into Perry, who was convicted of murder and later pardoned after killing Garrett Foster at a Black Lives Matter protest in Austin.

Governor Abbott vowed to pardon Foster before he was even convicted last year, citing Texas’ “stand your ground” laws permitting certain instances of armed self-defense if an individual feels threatened. Both Perry and Foster had been armed in the altercation, but Perry fatally shot Foster. Within a year, the governor-appointed Texas parole board recommended Perry’s pardon and Governor Abbott acted swiftly to approve his release. Perry walked free within an hour of the announcement.

In the absence of state intervention, James called on the federal government to bring Perry to justice, characterizing Perry's actions as racially motivated acts of hate.

“The facts of the case were egregious,” James wrote, noting that a jury of 12 had voted to convict Perry of murder after the discovery that he had posted online advocating for vigilante murder of racial justice protestors.

James cited the Dept. of Justice’s history of taking on civil rights cases superseding local and state justice systems, and expressed concern that Texas' "stand your ground" laws as enforced by Abbott could encourage others to commit further acts of violence against protestors.

“At the time of his murder, Garrett Foster was exercising his First Amendment right to protest, as a part of broader protests against police brutality and racial injustice in the summer of 2020,” James wrote. “Texas law does not prevent a federal prosecution for Mr. Perry’s act of killing someone for racial reasons in order to prevent him from exercising constitutional rights.”

Governor Abbott's office did not respond to request for comment.

[bouncinghedgehog]