Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Jared Marcum - NRA Poster Boy of the Poor Persecuted Ones



ABC

A West Virginia judge has ruled that an eighth grader who was arrested after wearing an NRA t-shirt to school will stand trial for obstructing an officer, a crime that can carry up to a year in jail and $500 fine.

Jared Marcum, 14, was charged last week after wearing the shirt to school in April. The shirt included the logo of the National Rifle Association, an image of a rifle, and words “protect your right.”

Jared was asked to remove the shirt or turn it inside out by a secretary and then a teacher at Logan Middle School in Logan, W.Va. When he refused to do so he was brought to the principal, who called police.

The boy said that when police arrived at the school, they told him “sit down and shut up” and threatened to charge him with making terroristic threats when he tried to explain his side of the story.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to take back my earlier agreement with Kurt about what a travesty this case is.

After reading dozens of misleading headlines by the supposedly liberal press, I have to take issue with a couple of things. Here's an example from the ABC article I linked to.

Eighth Grader Could Face Year in Jail for Wearing NRA T-Shirt

Others state that he faces a year in jail "over" the NRA t-shirt. But it's just not true.

The school policy states that if they deem a student's dress to be inappropriate they can ask that the offending item be removed or covered up.  The boy refused. He was suspended.

When the cops were called, he refused to stop talking when instructed to do so. He purposely interfered with the officers' ability to do their job, AND THAT'S what he was charged with, not for wearing the t-shirt. The headlines might as well have said he was arrested for wearing tennis shoes, or, more accurately, that he was arrested for mouthing off.

One interesting angle on the whole thing is this: not one of our pro-gun commenters had anything to say about the obvious dishonesty in the reporting. In fact, they encouraged it with the most colorful language and strenuous support.

The reason for that is obvious. Their side of the debate lacks substance and must rely on fabricated ònonsense like this.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.


47 comments:

  1. Mike,

    I went back to look at your original reference article, but couldn't find it and the video wasn't available. I did however find another article from the same time period. Here is what it said.

    "Marcum was eventually arrested and taken away by police after refusing to remove the shirt. White said that when police told the teen they were going to arrest him, he stuck his hands out and said, "Fine."

    "Logan City Police Chief E.K. Harper told ABCNews.com that Marcum was not arrested for wearing a t-shirt, but for "disrupting the school process."
    http://abcnews.go.com/US/west-virginia-teen-arrested-wearing-nra-shirt-school/story?id=19017896#.UcFQPxco61u

    The text you used in your posting didn't provide anything to contradict it. So it seem like everyone including yourself based their opinions on the information given in the original story.
    Hard to take anyone to task for not catching this one at the time of the article. Do you know when the additional facts regarding the arrest were released?

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    1. I suppose you haven't seen the dozens of articles over the last few days with the misleading and inflammatory expression I mentioned- facing a year in jail for wearing an NRA t-shirt?

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    2. Actually, I saw Kurt's article on the Examiner a couple days back where he explicitly pointed out that the arrest and charges stemmed from the boy having the temerity to not shut up when told to.

      It's pretty dishonest to hold us accountable for the mainstream press doing a shitty job of doing their jobs. Kurt, the only one of us who is a journalist, reported on the issue with the specificity you're demanding.


      Meanwhile, I wish I could say that I was shocked that you would side with the police on this--after all, it's not like the kid physically interfered with the exercise of their duties. He just protested his treatment and tried to tell his side of the story. If this is grounds for a year in jail, then every protestor in history could be locked up the same way. That would certainly make things easier for the powers that be.

      Of course, you don't worry about setting a precedent like that for the tyrants, because they're Your tyrants, and they'll only use this power against uppity gun-nuts.

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    3. So you're unhappy that after reading the new information released over the last few days and didn't go back to update our feelings with another comment on your posting you wrote back in April? While I do always look forward to our conversations here, it didn't occur to me to do that.
      As for facing a year in jail, in reality he'll likely not serve any time. The down side is that he'll have a criminal record which will effect his future. For example, it could potentially keep him from joining the military if that is his desire. All for being mouthy. While there should be consequences for disobedience and disrespect in schools, turning it into a criminal case is just highlighting the lack of ability or desire of the school personnel to constructively deal with this.
      It also doesn't necessarily speak well to the responding officer. In fairness, while the kid wasn't wrong in his assertion that the shirt didn't violate school policy and that he was likely just guilty of offending the sensibilities of some school employee, he could have handled it better by not being an asshole. In actuality, he seems to have controlled this entire event, including his interaction with the officer.
      The headline could have easily said 14 year old faces 10 day suspension for wearing t-shirt if things had been handled better.

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    4. " In fairness, while the kid wasn't wrong in his assertion that the shirt didn't violate school policy "

      That's the pro-gun smear-job. The school policy I read says any student wearing clothing the school deems inappropriate can be asked to remove it or cover it up.

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    5. Mikeb, you're revealing your love of arbitrary power again.

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    6. And obviously Any refusal to remove or cover the shirt should be met with not just suspension, but calling the cops, arrest for opening one's mouth in the presence of an officer, and a year in jail.

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    7. Does anyone else find it absolutely hilarious that Mikeb, of all people, is in high dudgeon over inaccurate, provocative titles?

      Not only that, he is criticizing us for not expressing our own indignation--and we were apparently morally obligated to beat him to the punch, since his first criticism of the headlines came at the same time we were scolded for not whining like him.

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    8. Par for the course, I'd say. It stopped being funny a long while back. Now that he's cheered for the wrongful conviction of a gun owner in Jersey and is cheering on the prosecution of this kid for nothing more than speaking, this looks less like funny hypocrisy and more like willful doublespeak.

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    9. Of course Kurt liked that one, T. It doesn't have to contain truth for him to like what you say as long as it attacks me in some way.

      I haven't "cheered" for his prosecution "for nothing more than speaking." I was trying to point out the unscrupulous twisting you guys love to do. You all were on the bandwagon of "facing a year in jail for wearing the NRA t-shirt."

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    10. Of course Kurt liked that one, T. It doesn't have to contain truth for him to like what you say as long as it attacks me in some way.

      If you view the truth as "attack[ing]" you, your problems are nothing we can help you with.

      You all were on the bandwagon of "facing a year in jail for wearing the NRA t-shirt."

      Prove it. Hell, I'll make it easy for you. I won't demand proof--just a shred of evidence.

      You will fail, as usual.

      And by the way, are you going to explain how your disgusting lie of a headline was perfectly acceptable, while ABC's somewhat misleading headline should be excoriated?

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    11. Mikeb, you seriously can't see how the thing that got the ball rolling was the shirt? Whatever the pissy cop arrested the boy for, said cop wouldn't have been there in the first place (or would have stayed in his office) if the school administration hadn't gone nuts--in West Virginia, yet--over a shirt that was harming and threatening no one.

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    12. What was Trayvon Martin shot for?

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    13. T., "He just protested his treatment and tried to tell his side of the story."

      And how would you know that?

      I agree with what you said about Kurt reporting it properly. He's too smart to do otherwise. But, neither he nor any of you ever mentioned the distortions which went wild on the internet until I brought them up. To me, that's tantamount to supporting them.

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    14. Mike,

      You accused us of unscrupulously twisting this story, even after Kurt and I both pointed to his actual article on the topic.

      You misrepresent what we say, and then you accuse us of unethical misrepresentations. No, you go further and accuse me of outright lying--meanwhile I have to be careful what I say back because I may get my whole post censored as you have done in the past.



      Finally, as for the cheering: you're right, you haven't donned a little skirt, picked up some pom-poms and made a human pyramid to support the prosecution. All you've done is tell us that you don't consider this case a travesty anymore, implying that you see prosecution as legitimate here. You've told us why it was appropriate to charge the kid, and why you think he was in violation of the code for the t-shirt. You've made fun of the boy as a "poor persecuted one" which implys that think he's getting what he deserves.

      So, no, I guess you haven't CHEERED for his prosecution, just jeered in his general direction and explained to the rest of us why his prosecution is just.

      BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE.

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    15. And how would you know that?

      Um . . . perhaps from the fact that even the police report doesn't accuse him of "obstructing an officer" in any way other than talking?

      We obtained official court documents from both sides of this case. On one hand, the arresting officer from the Logan City Police Department, James Adkins, claims that when Jared refused to stop talking, that hindered his ability to do his job, hence, the obstruction charge. On the other side, Ben White points out that nowhere in the arresting officer's petition, does it mention Jared ever making any threats or acting in a violent manner.

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    16. Supporting them? I'd have to be aware of something before I could decide to support or oppose or remain neutral. Besides, this case ultimately was about one boy's decision to express his opinion, an opinion displayed on his shirt.

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    17. How would I know that? As Kurt said: that's what the police report says happened.

      As for the notion that we supported the "misrepresentations" running rampant on the internet because we didn't go around hunting down poor reporting and pointing out the errors in it: Gee Mike, I didn't know it was my job to track down every bit of bad reporting on the internet and denounce it. I never knew that NOT seeking out people on the Internet who are wrong qualified as supporting what they say.


      Of course, I guess this works both ways, so why are you supporting those who are demanding total bans of guns rather than ripping up their arguments on their sites and here, discrediting everything they say? Clearly you are supporting what they say with your silence.

      Same with the anti-gunners who wish for harm upon gun owners, expressing desires that gun owners be injured in accidents, or that their children be shot and die in their arms.

      You also are clearly supporting the use of wrong terminology by reporters who inaccurately report on gun stories in ways that make guns seem more dangerous than they are and bad reporting that makes it look like it is legal to buy a long gun from an individual across state lines.

      I'd go on, but that's enough for you to answer to.

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    18. This is where you're wrong, T. I have denounced the total gun banners as fanatics who are not representative of the gun control movement.

      But, as I said, you were happy to let a hundred misleading headlines go by about the poor boy going to jail for wearing an NRA t-shirt without a peep.

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    19. Mikeb, stop being petulant. You're obsessed about gun control, so you watch these things. We have lives.

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    20. Yes, I let a hundred lazy journalists misreport on the issue--journalists whose articles I didn't read. (I read the initial article you linked to, and then Kurt's article about the charges that were filed.) But, again, you're right. I should have spent my days looking for people who are wrong on the Internet so that I can tell them that they're wrong!

      http://xkcd.com/386/



      And as for your standard: You've only occasionally denounced total gun bans when accused of supporting them. You don't search out and denounce all of the suggestions of such that KEEP happening. You also don't address the other issues I brought up.

      Hell, on the wrong terminology one, you've actually made excuses for some of the shoddy reporting.


      Stop concern trolling and get back to trying to make actual, sensible arguments. Otherwise, you're beginning to resemble E.N.

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    21. I have denounced the total gun banners as fanatics who are not representative of the gun control movement.

      Oh, have you? Have you denounced the Violence Policy Center's position calling for a total ban of handguns, not to mention so-called "assault weapons," .50 caliber rifles, and "intermediate sniper rifles" (which should be banned for the unpardonable sin of being too accurate? Have you condemned the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence for having changed its name from Coalition to Ban Handguns only because they decided they wanted so-called "assault weapons" banned, too? Have you denounced fanatical extremist groups like the Brady Campaign, for their membership in IANSA, whose director once called for a ban of all rifles capable of killing at 100 meters (all centerfire rifles, in other words, and probably rimfires, too)?

      But, as I said, you were happy to let a hundred misleading headlines go by about the [courageous young man] going to jail for wearing an NRA t-shirt without a peep.

      A hundred? I bet you can't find 50 examples. I bet you can't find 25. I bet you'd be hard pressed to find a dozen. And yet you have the audacity to complain about dishonesty.

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  2. I saw this reported on the HuffnPuff yesterday, but as far as I can see, nothing inaccurate is being reported here. He is being charged because he wore a shirt that wasn't against the rules. Everything that followed was a result of that act. There's nothing misleading here. It's inflammatory, and that's how it should be.

    There is substance here. You mocked this boy for being too old, even though you were shown to be wrong in that. You accuse us of having nothing to say about "dishonest reporting," even though this was the headline only yesterday and we discussed this incident a while ago. But more than that, Marcum faces serious consequences for expressing his opinion.

    In fact, you're probably pleased that he could become a prohibited person. Hooray, you might get another one. What we see here are two inescapable facts:

    1. Once you reject the rights protected by the Second Amendment, no right is sacred.

    2. Mikeb, you are a deeply hateful person.

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  3. Here is an excerpt from my personal take on it:

    It seems worth pointing out here that a police officer who can be thwarted from doing his job by a 14-year-old's talking would seem to be an officer from whom it would be wise not to expect much useful work.

    More importantly, if one can face a year in jail for talking when an armed agent of the government has ordered one to be quiet, the First Amendment has effectively ceased to exist. There is no free speech when speaking against the government's wishes is a "crime," that can lead to a
    child spending a year in a cage.

    You may perhaps have noted that I never claimed that this grotesque miscarriage of justice is about the shirt. The fact that some media outlets have done so has . . . what, exactly, to do with me?

    So now you renounce your brief flirtation with with rationality and morality, and rejoin the authority worshipers.

    Probably for the best--that's where you belong.

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  4. We're in partial agreement, Mike. It is one of my pet peeves when people say something happened because of X, when really it's because X led to Y, and Y is why that thing happened. Drives me nuts. And it is very common in reporting, and perpetuated by the masses. How many times have we heard "Treyvon Martin was killed for walking down the street with a hoodie up"?

    Where we differ, is that I find it nearly equally deplorable to arrest a 14 year old boy for not taking his shirt off, or for speaking when told to shut up. Why did they let it escalate? Why did they call the cops? It wasn't wrong in the first place to wear that shirt, but still I remember plenty of kids being disruptive of the learning process, but I never recall the cops cuffing and hauling the kid away to jail for a year. You don't have a problem with a kid spending a year in jail for "mouthing off" as you called it?

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    1. By the look of those fat-assed cops, I can see the smart-mouthed kid was too much for them. It never should have gone as far as it has.

      You gave a good example of the opposite and equal offending headline regarding the choir boy Trayvon, who, everyone knows, was murdered for carrying candy in his hand.

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    2. . . . the choir boy Trayvon, who, everyone knows, was murdered for carrying candy in his hand.

      Well, everyone except decent, reasonable people, who know that every alleged criminal is innocent until proven guilty.

      Oh--what choir was Martin a member of?

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    3. Why haven't we heard you attack those headlines about Martin and Zimmerman? Why have we, instead, seen you constantly attack Zimmerman and make ridiculous charges about the prosecution doctoring photos to hurt its own case?

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    4. Oh--when are you going to condemn Bloomberg's hate group for referring to terrorists, cop-killers, and other murderers as "victims" of "gun violence"?

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    5. I haven't read those articles, I've only seen the headlines. But, off the top of my head, it seems fair to include everyone who is killed by bullets, murder victims, suicides, bad guys, all of them are done in by gun violence.

      Your problem is you just hate Bloomberg and oppose anything he does, plus you love to jump on whatever pro-gun bandwagon is in vogue at the moment.

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    6. Mike, according to your standards, not having read articles doesn't excuse you at all.


      Though that point is moot since you apparently support the idea of memorializing anyone killed with a gun, regardless of the reason, as a victim of gun violence, and therefore a reason why we need gun control.

      Light a candle for Adam Lanza, Kleebold and Harris, Osama Bin Ladin, Hitler, Bonnie and Clyde, and whoever else you want if that's what blows up your skirt. Go ahead and include such people in your lists of how many victims of the evil gun that there are. Please, include everyone killed with a gun while trying to murder someone else.

      And then stand around, comically, scratching your head as you wonder why people start treating you like a pariah and rejecting all of your suggestions as the worthless rantings that they are.

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    7. But, off the top of my head, it seems fair to include everyone who is killed by bullets, murder victims, suicides, bad guys, all of them are done in by gun violence.

      You may not be aware of this, Mikeb, but there are people who routinely argue that "guns do more harm than good." Some of them probably actually believe that bizarre assertion. That being the case, it's morally wrong to actively support their delusions, by counting positive use of guns (stopping evil people from committing more evil) as part of the "harm" for which guns are to be blamed.

      That guns contributed to the deaths of Tsarnev, Dorner, etc., and to the cessation of their predations, obviously belongs on the positive side of guns' ledger.

      Your problem is you just hate Bloomberg and oppose anything he does . . .

      That's not a "problem," it's a moral duty, and one that I am happy to fulfill.

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    8. Almost forgot--at least Bloomberg has impeccable judgment about whom to trust with guns to protect his royal hide.

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  5. I find it revealing that you use the same mocking “poor persecuted gun owner” theme when talking about a 14 year old boy facing the possibility of a year in prison, which I thought was reserved for gun owners who whine about registration, or some other “inconvenience”.

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    1. This is actually a punishment for someone exercising free speech rights. It is only tangentially to do with guns. What we see here is that Mikeb's position is all about control. The specific object or action in question doesn't really matter. What is important to him and his ilk is that we all submit to his favored authority.

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    2. What is important to him and his ilk is that we all submit to his favored authority.

      Exactly, Greg, and it's as if it never occurs to him that it won't always be "his team" in power.

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    3. Do sheep ever really care who the shepherd is?

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  6. Another proud day for Mikeb's heroes--this time they tried to gag Jared Marcum, and, like anti-gun, anti-freedom fanatics everywhere, even threatened to arrest a black woman for being "uppity."

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  7. I know you don't like ABC's "misleading" headline, Mikeb, but I trust you'll admire the nice, dramatic title I came up with.

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  8. Well, another young man has been subjected to the thuggery of anti-NRA intolerance, and again, there was nothing in the school dress code that can be legitimately interpreted to constitute a ban of such shirts..

    At least there was no arrest this time, and at least it's in a state where one pretty much expects freedom to be treated as a disease to be stamped out.

    Good for the young man's moral courage in standing up for his rights.

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    1. Yeah, the freedom to wear a certain t-shirt and his "rights" to do so. You're a barrel of laughs, Kurt.

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  9. Here's a little update on this event. School dress code supposedly violated,

    "Staff members told Marcum that his shirt, which featured the NRA logo, a rifle and the words “Protect Your Right,” violated the school’s dress code policy (which has since been removed from the school’s website). The policy prohibited the display of profanity, violence, discriminatory messages or sexually suggestive phrases, but said nothing about images of guns or firearm organizations."

    Charges against Jared,

    "In fact, two months after the incident, the charges against the teen were dropped, and Judge Eric O’Briant, who was overseeing the case, made it clear that “the state of West Virginia is not interested in the possibility of creating a juvenile criminal record for this defendant.”

    And last but not least, lawsuit filed,

    "The mother of a teen who was arrested and suspended for wearing – and refusing to take off – a National Rifle Association t-shirt to school last April has filed a lawsuit against the school district, claiming her son’s constitutional rights were violated when they prohibited him from wearing the shirt."

    "The complaint, which was filed in federal court last month, calls for $200,000 in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages."

    I especially like this part,

    "Yet following his suspension, the teen returned to school wearing the exact same shirt that caused the controversy, and a number of other students wore similar shirts that day in an effort to show their support for Marcum."

    http://www.guns.com/2015/05/13/mother-of-teen-arrested-over-nra-shirt-sues-school-district-for-450k/

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    Replies
    1. Did you mean to post this comment on the new post?

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    2. Did you mean to post this comment on the new post?

      Given the fact that SSG posted this comment sixteen hours before "the new post," I kinda doubt it.

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    3. I can do that. I posted it the day before you posted the new post, so I put it here to keep it on topic.

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    4. I missed that. I don't know why it took Kurt a whole 7 minutes to point out my mistake. He must have been busy.

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