Am I the only one who’s unsettled by this?
IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE…
Around here – admittedly not rural – you are informed when you move and start utility services that there will occasionally be workers coming onto the property to check the gauges. Also, the workers wear reflective vests and a uniform that makes it clear they are utility workers. It’s not really that much of a surprise to see this. If you want utilities, you have to let them check the system. Pretty much a no-brainer.
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I guess his mail carrier should too…
White power fanatics and NRA fanatics, two peas in the same rotten trash pod.
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Let’s take a second and look at the absolute worst-case scenario here.
The guy HAS a gun in his waistband. He DOES verbally threaten the utility crew… something along the lines of “If you don’t leave now, I’ll shoot you.”
They’re on HIS property, with no warning and no notice, preparing to damage HIS trees. Threatening to shoot trespassers is a perfectly reasonable response. In suburban Southeast PA where I grew up, or even in Wichita KS where i was born, or in the several towns in Virginia where I’ve lived since, that kind of behavior is pretty much expected. If you show up on someone’s property unannounced and start damaging it, they’re going to come out with a gun and threaten you.
That the utility company workers called the police was dumb. That the police didn’t dismiss their complaint out of hand was dumber. That they came out in force to “check on the situation” was idiotic and a waste of time and money.
Secondarily, I’m getting a real kick out of how far down the hypothetical rabbit hole we’re going with the comments here. There are several people arguing about the definition of “brandishing,” whether or not he was an idiot for having a gun tucked into his pants, whether that could semantically be considered “holstered” and to what precise degree of “threatening” it is to have an exposed gun on you while you’re yelling at someone.
To you all I have this to say: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”
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You still get mail service delivered to your door? Not us, that’s down on the public street.
Don’t get me started on the USPS. I’d happily opt out of their junk mail deliveries entirely and pay a premium to receive all the things I’ve actually requested through FedEx/UPS. At least then my goods wouldn’t be consistently damaged or late. Also, never having to go wait at the PO to pick up a package again, the only reason I go, would be a blessing from god.
You must not understand the laws regarding utility companies (and the tree companies they subcontract to do the work). They had every legal right to be on his land, because he had not pruned the trees around the power line running through his property. Most people are pleased that they don’t have to spend the time and/or money to prune affected trees but instead can rely on the utility company to do the work. However, if you have a particular appreciation for your tree(s), it’s a good idea to do the work yourself so that they don’t have to come onto your property to do it, since obviously they’re just going to prune quickly without much regard for aesthetics.
As a personal example: my father lives in a rural area and lost an entire row of trees along the edge of his property because the phone company said they were too close to the lines. They didn’t just prune the trees…they chopped them all down. There’s a huge bare spot on his property now. His lawyers determined that the phone company was in its rights and doesn’t even have to replace the trees with anything else.
Utility companies have special rights because they provide essential services to entire areas. Even if you produce your own electricity/water/whatever, if a utility line runs through your property, you have to allow them access to it. To truly live off the grid, you need to be far enough away from civilization that no utility line is running through your land.
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So… Kevin Spacey in the American History X sequel?
Welp, no you wouldn’t. Obviously. but it’s a fun story.
I’m usually not the one making the argument for the police…but in this case they were called to the scene by public utility workers claiming that they were being threatened by someone with a gun. The police checked it out, realized it was a misunderstanding, and left. They didn’t invade this guys privacy, they did their public obligation by looking into a situation they were called to look into, realized nothing was wrong and left. This wasn’t a case of police over stepping their boundaries, or police state type behavior. This was how we want it to go, make sure things are safe then leave when called. You’d have to have a pretty skewed view to be unsettled by such a non-story, especially when there are so many actual stories that are unsettling.
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Judging by this guy’s other tattoos he’s a white supremacist. Notice the iron cross with Tannenberg fett script (the ubiquitous Nazi font) and the Nazi eagle clutching a swastika icon on his left bicep. This guy has obviously made some great choices in his life.
He also seems to be going for Ed Norton’s look in American History X.
This is an increasingly credible reason to resist gun registration - your first inkling of routine city business is likely to be the SWAT team showing up with military weapons in the hands of local yahoos and PTSD Iraq vets, whose first act will be to shoot your dog. Why? because you have a gun in your house. Never mind that there is no complaint or report of trouble or that a phone call would probably be sufficient, these militarized mall cops need to get out their toys.
I was just thinking how the gun issue in America turns everyone, regardless of political stripe, into utter fools. As someone who’s largely gun-neutral* it makes me more nervous that people debate this issue so badly than any possible outcome of the debate.
Guy is an idiot: Check.
Utility Guys take no chances: Check.
Police take no chances: Check
Combine those factors and this was inevitable. Guy may or may not be an idiot for having the tattoo. Guy is an idiot for lacking self-awareness and the common sense to attempt reason with people who are clearly not some bizarre lawless tree-cutting street gang. Utility crew is completely blameless. I live in a relatively rural area, if someone starts yelling at me (easement or not) about property and appears to have a gun: I leave. People here can be really fucking stupid hicks at times, and I don’t give them the benefit of the doubt anymore.
The cops? The cops are always prone to overreacting and blowing someone to kingdom come over nothing. That said, if someone comes at you with a gun yelling what could easily be threats, the police at their very best are going to be wary. I can’t fault them for that.
If you own a gun, you can and should be held to a higher standard. Just like when you have a car, or operate heavy machinery. If you don’t want the added responsibility, don’t carry one- or pretend to.
*This basically means that I acknowledge the 2nd Amendment exists, and therefore it has to be honored as any other constitutional provision. I like guns because they are machines and I like machines. The 2nd amendment is about permitting rebellion, not protecting yourself from muggers, animals, or playing Travis Bickle. That said, handguns are exceedingly useless against the most advanced military in the world. Handguns wielded by out of shape people with no concept of tactics, even less so. Besides, in the event you are rebelling against the government, why do you care about breaking the law? Seems kind of a moot point then.
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Nah, they bash down doors and shoot dogs without that information.
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See all the likes you got on that one?
Having time to seemingly stick a gun in your waistband but not having time to put on a shirt hardly classifies as having a holstered gun.
A gun stuck in a waistband is an unspoken threat, but feel free to live in your own fantasy world.
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Have you ever seen an episode of Cops?
Hey, an unarmed kid gets murdered by a vigilante in Florida and the NRA hold a party.
A white supremacist gets not killed by a SWAT team after threatening behavior and they get all indignant.
Only good use for a gun is to plug a gun nut in the brain. Anyone who isn’t police or military owns or carries a gun ever is fair game for cop target practice. End of story.
30,000 gun deaths in the US per year. In the UK where possession is a 20 year jail term and firing gets you 30, deaths are a few tens.
*Except where otherwise stipulated by the law.
Which this situation falls under.
This guy’s tat is irrelevant.
No, it’s not. The work crew was within their legal right to be there. They felt their safety was threatened by a guy who came out, seemingly with a pistol, screaming unintelligible garbage that they perceived as a threat to their safety. If he’d gone up to them and said “you don’t have my permission to be here, please leave” they would, by their own rules, have had to leave. He could have even said “You’re trespassing - fuck off” and they would have had to leave.
PS: Using “b-word” to placate the mods still doesn’t remove the fact that the word is arguably sexist and as such inappropriate here.
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