If that was an actual insurrection or attempted assassination, it was the weakest effort imaginable. That doesn’t necessarily change the thrust of your comment (that enforcement is appropriate) but the breathless hyperbole around what happened has really surprised me. An actual insurrection would have looked very different. More guns and C4, fewer selfies.
I watched it live and then dug through the videos, selfies, etc after and inside the Capitol, I found one guy who might have had a gun. The other weapons appear to have been convenient - a fire extinguisher, flags, etc. It looks less and less like an "insurrection" and more like jackasses doing jackass things.
That’s what made it appear fake. Every republican protest recently has dozens of people carrying rifles. Why would it make sense for them not to do this when they are invading the capitol? It doesn’t add up. It’s almost as if they were not planning to really do anything except cause a diversion.
I agree with most of your reasoning but intrigued by the diversion bit. Any theories on what this was a distraction from? What got less/no attention as a result of this?
I'm not sure about distraction, but the whole exercise called to mind similar exercises in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ukraine, Hong Kong, etc. Those were run by CIA, so even though I don't have a good theory for why they (or parties within the organization; it's not a monolith) would do this, it does make one wonder... Keep in mind that even if a particular party staged this exercise, it might not have gone as they planned.
It’s difficult to narrow it down as there are dozens of potential answers that question. It’s possible even that whatever it was planned as a diversion for is not yet discovered.
This is a good point - this is the same group that is very gun rights focused and has been wandering around the streets armed with automatic weapons. It's kind of weird to see them without guns.
- DC does issue concealed carry permits but doesn't honor them from other states (called reciprocity).
- This was talked about far and wide in advance on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere framed as "don't bring guns to DC! You will go to jail!" and supported by flyers posted throughout DC. (You can still find pictures of them online.)
> why people who are already breaking one law would care about the others
Remind me not to get in your way when you're jaywalking.
Premeditating a felony firearms offense is one thing. I think the majority who entered the Capitol were probably thinking that most of the rhetoric they were hearing beforehand was hyperbole and were probably expecting to just protest outside the capital, and then got swept up in the moment and committed misdemeanor/felony breaking-and-entering.
Protests are big drinking events. For some reason people don't talk about this. Angry people go out planning to peacefully protest for George Floyd or Trump, they drink some liquor, their inhibitions go down, they decide to throw a couple bottles, break a couple windows. It's hard to miss the number of red faces in the videos of the capital riot.
Almost no civilian in the country has "automatic weapons" this is what people are saying when they mention theres a lot of hyperbole around this topic.
Slight correction: Legal automatic weapons. It is hard to estimate how many people have or could retrofit semiautomatic weapons into automatic weapons illegally. There are public plans for such modifications floating around the net, and at least some of them actually work, with some guns. And that's not counting the quasi-automatic stuff like bumpstocks or gimmicky 'trigger cranks.'
I once met somebody who wears a lightning link as a pedant around their neck. Probably it wouldn't be compatible with their rifle's receiver, but who knows.
I think the risk-to-reward ratio is pretty low for having an illegal automatic weapon. It takes a lot of trigger discipline even for average trained soldiers to not to quickly waste most of their ammo with fully automatic weapons.
Then again, just because it's not smart doesn't mean people don't do it.
It really depends on what their objectives are; what they think they might accomplish by having an automatic rifle. There are a wide array of tactical objectives, some better served by automatic weapons than others. Consider particularly the different tactical objectives terrorists and soldiers might have. Particularly, soldiers need more discipline because they're likely to be fighting people who can fight back. Having bullets come back at you would surely fray the nerves.
Point taken, but I think most people tempted to have illegal automatic weapons are the paranoid home defense crowd, not the massacring unarmed civilians crowd. They're probably imagining having to use them against SWAT and military.
Walking around with a gun in DC is an automatic felony with potentially years in jail, especially if it's in connection with a violent act which this insurrection was. DC is not a gun-friendly place. These people were stupid, but not that stupid.
To make sure I understand you: Your claim is that a bunch of people showed up to violently overthrow the government but didn't bring guns because that would be illegal?
They were deluded by their political puppet masters into thinking they were actually showing up to defend the constitution by intimidating corrupt politicians who knew they were corrupt.
They didn't bring guns because their goal wasn't to overthrow the government.
Luckily, you're not a police investigator, because you can't be more wrong. All manner of weapons were confiscated - guns, ammo, explosives, crossbows, brass knuckles, etc. These were people who came to kill.
Read your article. None of those things were found inside the Capitol.
If they didn't go into the Capitol, we're clearly talking about different groups. The unasked questions are: Why not? What were they there to do?
I did work in law enforcement in DC. One of the first things you learn is how to separate facts from conjecture from imagination. Mixing up the three isn't helpful to anyone and often taints you as an investigator.
Or protect themselves from counter-protesters? Are you saying anyone with a gun at the event had the mens rea for murder? There are probably more guns at the average baseball game.
I'm not sure about baseball, but the last time I went to a basketball game I had to walk through a metal detector, got my bag searched, and was patted down.
Just because you failed at crime doesn’t mean you didn’t commit a crime. Attempted murder is still a thing.
And I think you should probably read more about what actually happened. The initial photos were of idiots in horns and face paint and that has colored the public perception of what happened, but the clownshow gave cover to a smaller number of organized militia types compromised of former and active duty military and law enforcement. Those people were armed, came prepared, had intelligence about the layout of the building, and received updates on the location of MOC. They were there to kill and take hostages, and they came within minutes of achieving that goal.
Nothing about this was laughable, and the concern is not overblown.
I think it is reasonable to argue that there were a number of people in the crowd that had ill intent. Not sure which crime fits the facts though (sedition, attempted murder, etc.) That will depend on actual facts, which is why we have trials, etc.
I don't think it is reasonable to think that everyone on the Capitol grounds had that same ill intent. More likely that the organized minority instigated the crowd and used them as cover for their shameful and ridiculous efforts.
Needless to say, the predominent narrative seems to be that anyone in the crowd was an "insurrectionist". That goes too far IMHO.
BIG red flag from this article: No weapons charges. If they were armed, they were not armed lawfully either in DC as a whole or in the Capitol specifically. Therefore, we have to ask: were they armed?
Regardless, this line is scary at first glance: "All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas." but I've been trying to figure out what it means.
I worked on the Hill for years and used some of the tunnels frequently. If they mean the "tunnels" in general, they're huge and expansive so it'd take a huge amount of effort across numerous entry points in almost a dozen buildings to "seal them in."
Alternatively, if they mean one of the secure areas (think: bunkers), they're designed to be buttoned up but "turn on gas" still doesn't make sense.
Regardless, thanks for the link. It will be interesting to see how the trials play out.
My understanding was that the explosives were not at the capitol (DNC headquarters I think), but maybe I'm just out of date on additional information?
Not saying that is good either, just that there were many things going on that day that aren't necessary related via any sort of coordinated operation.
It's not like there weren't homemade explosives found on the site:
> Coffman, 70, told police he had mason jars filled with "melted Styrofoam and gasoline." Federal investigators believe that combination, if exploded, would have the effect of napalm "insofar as it causes the flammable liquid to better stick to objects that it hits upon detonation," according to the court record. [0]
> The court documents said that those items and the explosive-filled mason jars "in close proximity to one another constitute a combination of parts" that could be used as a "destructive device."
I used "explosive" because that was how it appeared in the court filings. Without knowing the precise mixture, it could result as either something to cause a conflagration, or a detonation.
Calling it misinformation is somewhat disingenuous when not all the information is publicly available.
Your quote literally calls it a "destructive device", not an explosive, which is a term of art including mostly non-explosive things. The material in question is specified in the article. It is not explosive in any configuration as an incontrovertible matter of elementary chemistry. It does meet the criteria for being a destructive device in law.
Calling this "misinformation" is an accurate characterization. You are not responsible for what CNN reports but it should lead you to question the credibility of that news source.
Look into Mussolini and Hitler's early attempts. They looked really amateur and ridiculous too. The Munich Beer Hall Putsch was almost as much of a clown show. You even had some volkisch occult wackos who would have felt quite at home with the Q shaman.
