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Have you read Jay Jones’s texts? I don’t think complaining, “This guy actually said he wanted to see me and mine murdered, we have the receipts, he doesn’t deny it, and yet people elected him to office anyway,” is the same as complaining, “MSNBC called this guy a fascist, the Nazis were fascists, the Nazis murdered people, ergo this guy wants to murder people, and yet people elected him to office anyway.” In the one case, we are relying on what the guy actually said. In the other, we have to make several massive leaps to arrive at that objection.
Come on. The form "If you are in a room with ${BADDIE1}, ${BADDIE2} and ${JOKE_SUBJECT}, and you have a gun with two bullets, you would shoot ${JOKE_SUBJECT} twice" is a well known joke template which I have heard first around 2000 or so. Anyone who reads this as "Jones is clearly threatening to unearth Pol Pot and Stalin (or Hitler or whomever) to enact a bizarre situation in which he kills Gilbert with an almost empty handgun" is clearly misreading this on purpose.
You can tell this pretty well from how the recipient of the message reacted. It was not "OMG, Jones has threatened to kill Gilbert, even provided a specific method ("shoot twice"), better get the police involved before he does it." It was "WTF, Jones is joking about killing Gilbert. Cringe, terminally poor taste. Better keep that on file, might come useful later."
Also, going from "he threatened to kill Gilbert (and his family), Gilbert is a political opponent, I am also his political opponent, ergo he wants to kill me" is not following a path of valid logical inference.
You’re ignoring his follow-up phone call, the one where he said he wanted Gilbert’s children to be shot and die in their mother’s arms, so that he and his wife would change their minds on gun control. He then followed it up by texting
He then went even further, saying
He also previously told her that it would be a good thing if more police officers were shot, because then they’d be more reluctant to shoot others.
None of those follow standard joke templates, at least not where I’m from. The lady he was talking to also didn’t see any humor in those heated calls and texts, and she cut him off shortly thereafter.
For the most part, this rhymes with "I hope one of the immigrants you love so much rapes your daughter so you will realize how they are". Certainly a vile sentiment, but also not threatening violence, merely condoning.
Of course, referring to the kids as "little fascists" carries for me a strong connotation of "they do not deserve to live", which is an even worse statement than "in the grand utility sum, updating the beliefs of their father weighs more than their lives". Kinda rhymes with "the way that slut dresses, she is asking for it anyhow".
TIL. This is actually the most damning of all the scandal in my mind for an AG candidate. Not that he thinks that more cops should get shot, that is merely vile.
But that he seems to think that cops live in a magic happy world where they are detached from gunshot violence, the way the operator of a predator drone might be detached from the reality of explosions, and that therefore getting them more exposure to gunshot violence will increase their empathy and make them more reluctant to rely on firearms.
I may be talking out of my armchair from the other side of the pond, but to me it sounds like this guy is out of his fucking mind. I think that even without any cop getting shot, they likely have far more exposure to gunshot violence than I would wish upon anyone. I would expect that most cops have found themselves rendering first aid to a gunshot victim, trying to stop them from bleeding out from a gut shot while waiting for the EMTs to arrive whose job it is to deal with that particular kind of shit. No cop who shoots someone will do so in the expectation that they will simply de-spawn like in some kid's video game.
While I am sure that there are cops who have shot civilians in cold blood, the central case of an unjustified police shooting to my mind is a traffic stop where the young black suspect suddenly reaches into the glove compartment to get his license, and is shot because a cop thinks he is reaching for a gun. The question if the incidence of this will go up or down if more cops are shot on the job is something which could be answered by any five-year-old.
That’s exactly the issue. I don’t think anyone expects Jones to go on a shooting spree at the closest Republican daycare, but I think it’s fair to say that he wouldn’t mind if someone else were to. That’s completely poisonous for an AG. He has given every indication that he will slow walk or prevent the prosecution of his ideological allies, even (or especially) if they commit violence against his ideological opponents.
That isn’t a theoretical fear. The members of the Weather Underground committed campaigns of terror, bombings, murder, robberies, etc., but they were given slaps on the wrist, pardoned, and ended up with cushy jobs in academia. At least one mentored a future US president. Similarly, the south had a long history of government officials overlooking, tacitly encouraging, and refusing to prosecute violence against blacks. I think it’s reasonable for the Republicans of Virginia to have the same disquiet at Jones’s election as the black residents of Virginia would have at the election of a Klansman as AG. The Klansman AG wouldn’t go out lynching people himself, but it seems like a pretty good bet that he’d try to prevent any other lynchers from facing prosecution and punishment. So also Jones.
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