Please Be Careful Out There

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I found the first paragraph of this news story to be hilarious, in a twisted sort of way:

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has asked vigilantes to please be careful about which gun owners they choose to attack after a black concealed carry permit holder was wrongly assaulted at a Florida Walmart.

Yes, please be careful about which people you assault. Some people don’t like being assaulted.

According to the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office, 62-year-old Clarence Daniels was entering Walmart with his legally concealed firearm to buy coffee creamer on Tuesday when he was spotted by 43-year-old vigilante Michael Foster.

Foster, who is white, had observed Daniels conceal the weapon under his coat before he came into the store. When Daniels crossed the threshold, Foster tackled him and placed him in a chokehold, Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Larry McKinnon explained.

“He’s got a gun!” Foster reportedly exclaimed.

“I have a permit!” Daniels repeatedly shouted back.

After a struggle, the men were separated. Deputies later arrived and Foster was charged with battery.

“Unfortunately he tackled a guy that was a law-abiding citizen,” McKinnon noted. “We understand it’s alarming for people to see other people with guns, but Florida has a large population of concealed weapons permit holders.”

Yes, it’s alarming to see people you don’t know personally walking around with guns, but if you live in a place that allows everyone and his uncle to carry guns, you’re likely to run into strangers with guns. The bad guys don’t have “bad guy” stamped on their foreheads. And they’re both lucky the other guy didn’t fire his gun.

20 thoughts on “Please Be Careful Out There”

  2. This is the county I live in. Let’s give credit where it’s due. They actually arrested and charged the white guy for attacking the black guy. Overall,I haven’t had problems with the county mounties. They definitely have a diverse force and I suspect the mindset at the top sets the tone for the force. With the focus there is on dysfunctional PD’s like NYPD and LAPD and St. Louis trying to compete in arsholiness, I wonder if there isn’t more insight to be gained by locating and examining the policies and leadership of police departments who excel.

  3. You mean black folks an messicans can get carry permits? What’s next, Arabs ?
    This is what I find some humor in. The bubba think only their tribe will be lacking heat.
    I’m guessing the incident happened in plant city, the tobacco road of Hillsborough county.

  4. “Unfortunately he tackled a guy that was a law-abiding citizen,”

    What I thought they said he was black?

  5. The concealed carry permit holder is breaking the law if the concealed weapon is visible to other people.

    • tommin — read the article. It says the weapon was concealed, just that the “perp” saw Daniels conceal the weapon under his coat before he entered the store.

  6. The only thing the movie “Idiocracy” didn’t foretell, is that all of the idiot’s would be armed!

  7. I have to go to Walmart later today, to pick-up my Mom’s insulin.
    And dammit!
    I don’t have a gun!!!

  10. OT again, in the “Hell Freezes Over” department, GOP Governor Forcefully Argues for Other States to Expand Medicaid

    …”I gotta tell you, turning down your money back to Montana on an ideological basis, when people can lose their lives because they get no help, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Kasich told his Republican colleagues at the meeting.

    Kasich has been unique in his forceful defense of the program, viewed by hard-liners on the right as heresy for a conservative. He went around Ohio’s Republican-led legislature to adopt the expansion and has dismissed overall Obamacare repeal because it would undo the law’s Medicaid gains. While Obamacare is still anathema to conservatives, other Republican-controlled states have been slowly warming to Medicaid expansion.

    …”I don’t know if you’ve ever read Matthew 25, but I’d recommend it to you … about ‘do you feed the homeless and do you clothe the poor,'” Kasich said. “I’m a believer that it is in the conservative tradition to make sure we help people get on their feet so they then are not dependent.”

    “In my state it’s working,” he continued. “People are healthier, they’re getting their lives back, they’re getting work, and that’s the reason I’m doing it.”

    I’ve made a note to remember that rhetorical chop: it is in the conservative tradition to make sure we help people get on their feet so they then are not dependent. Conservativees constantly trot out the notion of “dependency”which is their reliable way to stop all argument.

  11. Another observation on Ernst: When I mentioned to my daughter that Ernst was gleefully bragging about her experience with castrating hogs, she responded with: Wow, that should keep the male politicians running in the opposite direction.

  12. @grannyeagle – I picked up on her eyes too. Scary indeed.

    re hog castration. Decades ago, I briefly had a girlfriend who proudly showed me her firenozzle collection. Literally a collection of about twenty brass nozzles she had hanging on a wall. I immediately recognized these as symbolizing penises, and it wasn’t long before I was running in the other direction. It wouldn’t surprise me that Ernst has something similar going on with her pride as a hog-castrator.

  13. I am very glad that the law abiding citizen didn’t “meet force with force, including deadly force” but there’s a part of me that thinks it would only have been justified.

    Except, suddenly, he wouldn’t be law abiding. He’d be a thug, and he was found taking a hit off a joint when he was 13, so he’s clearly a drug using thug, and *why* does a decent, law abiding person need to carry a *gun* around all the time except for nefarious purposes? Hm? We said something different last week? Well – *IT’S NOT LAST WEEK, IS IT?*

  14. I am very glad that the law abiding citizen didn’t “meet force with force, including deadly force” but there’s a part of me that thinks it would only have been justified. (No, not really – but, yeah, really, a tiny piece of me, the piece that always gets told to shut up because it’s not civilized.)

    Except, suddenly, he wouldn’t be law abiding. He’d be a thug, and he was found taking a hit off a joint when he was 13, so he’s clearly a drug using thug, and *why* does a decent, law abiding person need to carry a *gun* around all the time except for nefarious purposes? Hm? We said something different last week? Well – *IT’S NOT LAST WEEK, IS IT?*

  15. I briefly had a girlfriend who proudly showed me her firenozzle collection.

    Why are fire trucks red? 🙂

  16. The rabid folks at the NRA have managed to turn “concealed carry” into “open carry” in many places, anyway, so that the law-abider who was assaulted in Hillsborough County, FL, is being replaced by tens of thousands of white dudes with tiny boy-bits, swaggering around the local Krogers, Wal-Marts, and city playgounds with their assault rifles slung over their shoulders. What a country!

    Of course, as the Hillsborough County incident has shown, open carry would only work if you’re a white dude. Otherwise, a black man lawfully concealing the firearm before entering an establishment will cause the nearest bigot to freak out.

  17. Sadly, we in the USA give gun rights a much higher priority than civil and human rights…

  18. “The bad guys don’t have “bad guy” stamped on their foreheads.”

    To some, and apparently this guy, being black is the “bad guy” stamp.

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