Friday, January 21, 2011

WHAT DO GUNNERS CALL A GUY WHO PRAISED THE GIFFORDS SHOOTING? A HERO.

The Mahablog directs us to this story:

Police in Arlington, MA this week seized a "large amount" of weapons and ammunition from local businessman Travis Corcoran after he wrote a blog post threatening U.S. lawmakers in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). In a post on his blog (which has since been removed) titled "1 down and 534 to go" -- 1 referring to Giffords and 534 referring to the rest of the House of Representatives and the Senate -- Corcoran applauded the shooting of Giffords and justified the assassination of lawmakers because he argued the federal government has grown far beyond its constitutional limits. "It is absolutely, absolutely unacceptable to shoot indiscriminately. Target only politicians and their staff and leave regular citizens alone," he wrote in the post....

Corcoran calls himself "an anarcho-capitalist" and while his blog has been taken down, based on his Twitter page, he appears to hold views similar to those of many in the anti-government libertarian wing of the conservative movement....


The guy is all over the Internet, and often styled his name Travis JI Corcoran, or TJIC. His blog was called Dispatches from TJICistan. So how has the gun crowd responded?

This way:


I am TJIC. So are you. If you blog, you are hereby authorized to use this image....

It would be one thing if the law were applied equally to all. It's not, and it will be applied disproportionately to us, because we hold views considered by some in power to be Double Plus Ungood. Lefties in particular, this is your moment. You say that you stand for good governance. Prove it.


Here's a list of 78 sites that are posting this logo in solidarity.

Let me review for those who are slow on the uptake: The guy has a gun license, and he urged the shooting of every member of Congress (and their staffs). He's lost his gun license. And these people think this is fascism.

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Corcoran's tagline back in the 1990s when he posted at various online forums?

"Buy a rifle, encrypt your data, and wait for the Revolution!"

I think we need some kind of Violent Counterrevolution Fantasy Camp for people like this guy (who seem to number in the hundreds of thousands in this country) -- y'kow, just to keep them out of trouble.

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And here's a bizarre thing: Corcoran has run two compaies -- SmartFlix, a video rental service, and HeavyInk, which sells comics. So I gather he's the same Travis Corcoran who shows up in this 2005 New York Times article about the Catholic Church and gay priests:

Grappling with the implications of a Vatican directive issued last week that would bar most gay men from seminaries, Roman Catholics at several parishes around the country yesterday offered sharply contrasting interpretations of its impact on the priesthood, on the potential for sex abuse by clergy members and on the church itself....

"If it is part of church doctrine, we'd be better off with 5 percent less priests, but who conform to church doctrine, rather than a few more," said Travis Corcoran, 34, the owner of an online DVD rental company, as he left an early Mass yesterday at St. Agnes Parish in Arlington, Mass., near Boston. "It's the same way if there's a shortage of school bus drivers. If you drug-test school bus drivers and the result is there are a few less school bus drivers, that's better." ...


Hmmm ... not exactly what I'd expect from a libertarian.

On the other hand, do you suppose this means he'll get support from Bill Donohue and the Catholic League?

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