‘Black Rifles Matter’ sign stirs controversy in Maine tourist town

[jpak]

Source: Bangor Daily News

BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine — Amid signs for bait and directions to the footbridge that crosses the harbor, a handmade sign posted along Boothbay Harbor’s main street has drawn complaints of racism from tourists and residents.

Several weeks ago, Linc Sample posted a sign on Townsend Avenue, just across from the Congregational Church and most visible to people as they drive out of town.

Along with a silhouette of an assault rifle, the sign states, “Black Rifles Matter: Yes, we have ’em. No, you can’t take ’em.”

The sign has led local merchants and business leaders to fear that tourists will shun the town, especially in the wake of threats by some out-of-staters to avoid Maine after Gov. Paul LePage’s recent statements about black and Hispanic people trafficking drugs in Maine.

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Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2016/09/09/news/midcoast/black-rifles-matter-sign-stirs-controversy-in-maine-tourist-town/

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[Calista241]

1. I saw a couple of similar signs in North and South Carolina a few weeks ago. n/t

[MrScorpio]

2. No one's going to take their guns away...

But, you know, you can't reason with paranoia.

[milestogo]

9. Obama is going to take their guns awayy

and he's only got a few months left to do it or its going to be unfinished business for Hillary.

[raging moderate]

3. Deplorable.

This sort of antic reminds us that there were slave traders in the North. The newspaper article mentions this man's fondness for flying the old confederate flag. The northeastern United States had many different sorts of people in the eighteenth century, and not all of them were opposed to slavery. This man may be descended from some of the buccaneers who manned those horrible slave ships that bought the slaves from Arab traders and transported them across the ocean, hideously crammed in the hold. It is also a reminder of the other northern thugs who actually participated in the legal fiction of owning fellow human beings.

[jpak]

5. Naw - he's just a racist asshole that likes to stir shit.

We have quite a few of these idiots up here.

Including our governor.

[The Wielding Truth]

31. People die because of this kind of racism. It should not be dismissed. It turns my stomach.

[paleotn]

4. snowbillies.....

everyone's got them.

[packman]

6. People who lead very shallow, lonely lives

and are desperate for attention - any attention.

[llmart]

7. That sums it all up....

perfectly. Though I hate to come off as a sexist here, let's face it. The majority of these gun humpers are white men who live shallow, lonely lives.

[Jason1961]

51. Finally the truth

Nearly all of the gun lovers are uneducated, low income, white men that are just hoping for the chance to kill someone that doesn't look like them.

I hope that Hillary has the backbone to seize all of their guns so we can see just how tough these guys really are.

It's 2016, no one needs guns anymore, time for us to join the rest of the civilized world and get rid of them once and for all.


Maybe they can keep their muskets if they promise to behave.

[benEzra]

57. And some people wonder why Dem and indie gun owners feel alienated from the party?

I have a B.A. and some graduate work in English and literary criticism (had to drop out of grad school when my son was born with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome), and I work as a technical writer in the aviation industry. I am also a casual competitive shooter (USPSA pistol and carbine), e.g. one of the uneducated morons you decry. My sister is an engineer and has a carry license, though she doesn't shoot competitively. Believe what you want, but it takes income to be a gun enthusiast, and a disproportionate number of us work in STEM fields.

I'd be interested in what data you think supports your generalization. Most polls don't show much difference between postgrads and "some college", and both groups are more likely to own guns than people who only have high school diplomas.

[Jason1961]

66. Less Guns will equal much less gun crime.

You and your NRA pals are going to have to hand over your modern guns.

I think we should still allow muskets and you can hunt with them fine.

If you want a gun so bad then sign up for the Army.

They're going away, get used to the idea, you'll be happy their gone once you see how much things improve without them.

[actslikeacarrot]

71. Which party that has a chance in hell...

...of controlling any branch of the government has "gun confiscation" as a platform?

[benEzra]

73. That's pretty much what Carrie Nation said to people who liked to have wine with dinner.

I'm sure she felt as justified in forcing her beliefs on others at gunpoint as you do, since alcohol kills, oh, 200 times as many people annually as rifles do.

But the funny thing is, we can still buy alcohol, can't we? The zealots pushed for a ban, responsible drinkers didn't comply and pushed back, and the party that pushed the ban collapsed into the dustbin of history.

FWIW, I think it's a bit ironic that you have an AR-15 owner and avid target shooter as your avatar.

[hack89]

10. AR-15s are very popular hunting rifles

Especially in the larger calibers.

[hack89]

12. To each their own.

Last edited Sat Sep 10, 2016, 01:09 PM - Edit history (1)

As a competitive target shooter I have owned AR-15s for decades. Wonderful rifles - accurate, lightweight, durable and easy to customize/modify.

[branford]

14. Isn't that a solution looking for a problem?

The number of crimes committed with ALL rifles, not just scary black "military-style" rifles, is tiny, both as a absolute number compared to our population and as a percentage of all gun crime, no less by people who legally possessed such firearms.

Assault weapon bans and similar laws to restrict ownership or simply make it more expensive and burdensome like your training, registration and tracking requirements, have absolutely nothing to do with fighting crime or improving safety, rather they are about changing "gun culture." The politicians supporting such bans are the same people supporting handgun bans and every other anti-gun suggestion they can find, including people like Obama and Clinton who support "Australian-style" gun laws, i.e., confiscation.

Assault weapon bans are an incrementalist approach to draconian gun restrictions akin to how pro-life supporters try to pass abortion "safety" regulations like doctor admitting privileges, hospital-like clinic requirements and zoning restrictions, and waiting periods. These battles are decades old, and no one is fooled.

[cstanleytech]

48. So then what would you recommend to reduce the number of incidents like Orlando?

[benEzra]

62. A mass murder by a state-licensed security guard authorized to carry contractor-owned weapons

is a tough nut to crack. But requiring him to use a Ruger Mini-14 (or a Glock, for that matter) instead of a Sig Sauer would have changed absolutely nothing in that particular case. The rifle the murderer used fires no faster than any other civilian autoloader, and is on the low end of the lethality spectrum.

I'll also point out that France has had more mass-shooting deaths since 2008 than we have, all with illegally possessed weapons; France allows AR-15 ownership, but the terrorists didn't bother with civilian non-automatics and used smuggled-in military automatic weapons (and grenades) instead, which could be done here just as easily.

There are some things that could be done around the edges, mostly aimed at identifying radicalized individuals before they strike, discouraging radicalization, etc., though I oppose police-state measures like warrantless surveillance and secret blacklists. There may be some attainable common ground on background checks, too, though I think the gun control lobby has thoroughly burned those bridges now. But legislating handgrip shape, receiver/stock aesthetics, or magazine length accomplishes precisely nothing except to harass the lawful and nonviolent, diverts police resources away from more productive ends, and further deepens the police/community divide, IMO.

[hack89]

15. I just don't see the point

It is not like AR-15s pose a particular danger. Rifles are the least likely weapon used in murder or crime. Seems like the focus on them is nothing more than moral panic based on wide spread public ignorance. .

[hack89]

20. Registration is draconian

And non-starter. No problem with training requirements.

[Igel]

21. It's always nice to try to change another's culture,

but it does miss the point.

Most gun-related deaths fall into just a few categories.

Those that are suicides.

Those that are accidents, committed not by owners with no training but by non-owners and from silly acts. (Sort of like most driving accidents happen with people who are trained and licensed, but do silly things.)

Those that are committed by people who have illegal guns and are doing illegal things on purpose.

None of those are "gun culture," and for a lot of the people in the third category, well, they're not whitebread NRA members.

As for not accepting the status quo, the problem with change is that most change is for the worse. There are far more worse scenarios than there are better ones, and once you start change you really can't predict how it's going to go. It's why CEO salaries are so high now--there were unacceptable CEO salaries, so regulations and rules were put in place to stop the practice. The ways found to get around the rules made it easier to inflate CEO salaries, and the limits on salaries became floors. So new regulations, new workarounds. We're on iteration 3 or 4 now. Please, let them stop before it gets even worse. Omniscience isn't really a thing.

BTW, "broken windows" is one of those things that's still argued against, mostly on ideological grounds. Given that social sciences typically aren't amenable to controlled experiments, when the correlation between broken-windows policing and the crime rate's cited, well, it's coincidence. Other things were at work and in play. So, really, all that's left is the original ridicule because, well, broken windows tends to be applied in neighborhoods where windows tend to be broken, and that's not usually middle-class and upper-class areas. To support that view of policing, in the view of some who call themselves the majority, is to be an oppressor. Meh.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

33. re: "...most Americans find the status quo unacceptable."

They just don't find it "unacceptable" enough to actually do anything like vote, contribute money or protest. When that same "most" actually get off their collective butts and vote, people may listen.

What will help is to empower the common folk, work with gun owners and eliminate the sense of division. Working together is the only option for progress.

[Duckhunter935]

28. Would that be for all weapons

or just the scary black ones?

[jpak]

23. I have hunted for over 40 years and I have never seen an AR in the woods

Popular?

not

[hack89]

24. Your Google broken?

Hate to break it to you but the world does not revolve around you and your experiences.

[jpak]

25. Life-long observation

**Reality**

so sorry

not

The only people I have encountered with AR-15ish penis enlargers are open carry assholes - that vote GOP.

yup

[hack89]

26. Then you have never met me

40 years a Democrat and proud of it.

[Duckhunter935]

29. Interesting another one that all they have is insults

And some kind of penis fetish. Truly sad.

[Travis_0004]

54. .

[ManiacJoe]

35. You were probably out there during the wrong season.

What game were you hunting?
Was a .223 round legal for that game? Most likely not, thus you saw no guns using that round.

[jpak]

38. .223 is not a big game load - it's a human killing load

yup

[Duckhunter935]

41. Depends on the bullet

Many bullets have been developed specifically for hunting that expand.

[hack89]

42. It was a civilian varmint round before the military adopted it. Nt

[Travis_0004]

55. Or in my state, rifles are banned for deer hunting

So you won't see a single AR-15. They are fine for varmint hunting, or wild boar hunting (but during deer season you can not hunt anything with a rifle. Some might switch to a shotgun, others likely take the season off, or go hunting for deer.

[EX500rider]

46. here:

more here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=hunting+with+ar-15&biw=1366&bih=681&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwiCu4LO04fPAhVDVyYKHZjhB98Q_AUIBygC#imgrc=CkCfubk6_57SXM%3A

[Jason1961]

52. Wow

You and your friends think you're so cool for killing things with assault rifles. Why the bloodlust? If you want to have a gun join the Army or the Police.

These assault weapons should not be on our streets unless they're in the hands of law enforcement.

Civilians will NEVER have a good enough reason to own one of these murder machines.

I'm one of the people that would love to see all guns banned. It's 2016 and there is absolutely no reason at all for us to keep clinging to them.

Gun ownership is not a sign of mental health.

[ManiacJoe]

56. Lots of misconceptions there.

You and your friends think you're so cool for killing things with assault rifles.

Those rifles are not assault rifles. Assault rifles are machine guns.

These assault weapons should not be on our streets unless they're in the hands of law enforcement.

In the real world there is no such thing as an "assault weapon". There is nothing special about AR-15 style rifles that need them to have more restrictions than any other rifle.

Civilians will NEVER have a good enough reason to own one of these murder machines.

You seem very confused about the capabilities of an AR-15 style rifle.

Gun ownership is not a sign of mental health.

However, mental health is a requirement of legal gun ownership.

[Throd]

67. You're trying too hard.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

79. "These assault weapons should not be on our streets unless they're in the hands of law enforcement."

Because "assault weapons" are useful only to kill and killing is the mission of law enforcement.

I think we should all bear the burden of making the work of law enforcement as easy as possible putting that ahead of every other priority.


Now let's see if I can think anything more f#&!ed up. Maybe I could sign up to get my next prostate exam done with a pine cone instead of a hand wearing a rubber glove.

[EX500rider]

60. Wow..

....I don't hunt.....I don't own any "assault rifles"....

If I want a gun I don't have to join anything thanks to the 2nd Amendment.

"Murder machines"....lol, you know what kills more people then those? Knives, bats/clubs, hands & fists...pools, falling, accidental poisonings...etc..

Irrational fear of inanimate objects is not a sign of mental health.

[Jason1961]

63. 2nd Ammendment Is for the National Guard

It's obvious to anyone not an idiot

[EX500rider]

68. Rigggghhhtt, that's why they put it in The Bill of Rights....lol good one!

.....the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Not the rights of the national guard members....lol

[Jason1961]

69. Enjoy your musket

Enjoy your musket, because anything other than that WILL get you thrown in prison.

[EX500rider]

70. Enjoy your quill and ink...

....because there were no computers when they wrote the BOR.

Don't recall it mentioning muskets...I believe it says "arms"

small arms
noun
portable firearms, especially rifles, pistols, and light machine guns.

[ileus]

75. So you're saying gun owners are getting thrown in prison?

[benEzra]

61. The military doesn't use civilian non-automatics like those, except in very specialized roles.

Those aren't automatic weapons in those pics, they are non-automatic civilian guns.

I'll also point out that rifles are the least misused of all weapons in the United States. Only 3% of all murders involve any kind of rifle whatsoever; 97% of murders are carried out with handguns, knives, clubs/hammers/bricks, fists/boots, or shotguns, in that order. Rifles rank last, behind all of those.

[Jason1961]

65. I'm sure that makes everyone feel better.

Perhaps we should comfort the families of the Sandy Hook Victims or the Pulse Night Club or the Aurora Colorado Massacre with the knowledge that assault rifles don't kill that many people.

Get used to the idea of parting with it, you'll thank me in 10 years.

[benEzra]

72. You'd be happier if rifles with straight stocks had been used instead? Or handguns?

The 2011 mass shooting at Utøya, Norway, is the worst on record (77 total killed, of whom 69 were shot); the shooter used a Ruger Mini-14, another small-caliber non-automatic that wouldn't be affected by any ban on rifles with protruding handgrips, aka "assault weapons".



http://www.ruger.com/products/mini14RanchRifle/specSheets/5802.html

The fact is, rifle stock shape is absolutely irrelevant to lethality, a fact that seems to escape those who are obsessed with outlawing the least misused guns if the stock is too modern-looking.

And no, we'll keep them, thanks. You'd have an easier time outlawing hunting, since considerably fewer voters hunt than own "assault weapons".

[benEzra]

58. Most AR-15's are .22's, hence are underpowered for hunting anything but small game.

AR-10's are good hunting rifles (.308 Winchester, .243 Winchester, 7mm-08, etc.) but are pricey compared to a bolt-action. AR-15's are chambered for low-powered rounds based on the .223 Remington case length, and typically deliver only ~2 kJ or so of energy compared to ~4 kJ for a deer rifle. An AR-15 can kill a deer with careful bullet choice and very careful shot placement, but there isn't as much margin for error, so they are more often used for hunting prairie dogs and other smallish animals, up to coyote-sized.

The vast majority of gun owners are nonhunters, though, and AR-15's absolutely dominate centerfire target shooting in the United States, both competitive and recreational, and are the most popular rifles in U.S. homes. Gun ownership is mostly not about hunting.

[ileus]

74. Not all firearms are meant for hunting.

I'd also question if they've ever shot on of the many variants that are "legitimate" hunting rounds.

Of course most AR's are owned for one of three things: Plinking range fun, Competition (think 3 gun), home defense.

[Coolest Ranger]

16. That's it

This is the day I am going to start drinking now

[FairWinds]

17. Just so we are clear . .

guns do not keep us safe . .

and in general, are for cowards.

[hack89]

27. Every gun owner is a coward?

I own a bunch and I am not scared .

[FairWinds]

43. Really brave beings . .

from Mum Theresa, to MLK to the historic Jesus

walked the earth with open hands.

They were not cowards.

There is something really, really creepy about people whose
personal identity is wrapped up with firearms.

Vietnam Vet and member of Vets For Peace

[hack89]

44. That isn't me so sounds like I am good.

I don't own guns for self defense.

[benEzra]

76. Dr. King owned guns for self-defense,

and the Deacons for Defense did as well. Dr. King actually applied for a concealed-carry license, but was denied on the basis of his skin color (which was pretty much the point of "discretionary issue" licensure).

[Duckhunter935]

30. I don't think I am a coward

I own several for target shooting

[jpak]

39. Do you fear mandatory universal background checks?

Do you fear a gun registry?

If so - you are a coward.

yup

[Duckhunter935]

40. I disagree

I am for UBC. I am against registration as it has been used in the past in California for gun confiscation. Seems to me it is the ones that for so much control that are constantly in fear.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

45. If I want to give a rifle to a niece, should I have to pay a dealer ...

... for a background check? And, should I have to pay tax money to maintain a pointless registration system?

The second amendment is ok by me, as well as the fourth and fifth.

So, the word is not "fear", but if you feel heroic calling people "coward", then do as you like.

yup

[oneshooter]

34. Then LEO's have been carrying them for all the wrong reasons? n/t

[24601]

37. Including the Secret Service that protect our President? The would of course be the same President

who had the shooting photo-op.

[EX500rider]

47. So a woman who lives alone and keeps a hand gun is coward?

Because she doesn't want to go hand-to-hand with a larger possibly armed assailant?

[beevul]

18. Gee, I wonder how people feel in other more pro-gun states. N/t

[Igel]

22. How nice.

We take a local issue of little interest even to locals and give the guy behind it far more attention than he deserves. Mostly so we can feel outraged.

Really, using the Internet for LOLcats and cat videos is not merely a single step up. However depressing that thought is.

[tonyt53]

32. Crazy cowards live in every state.

[ManiacJoe]

36. The gun company Bushmaster was a Maine company until moving to NC in 2011.

[mwrguy]

50. Gun humping and racism go hand in hand

Yet another example.

[Hoyt]

78. +100000000000000000000000

[FairWinds]

53. And furthermore . .

guns don't keep anyone safe or free . .

In fact, they have greatly compromised both.

[benEzra]

59. Then don't own them.

I respect your opinion, but around a quarter of Dems and more than a third of indies choose differently than you on this, and we'll retain that choice, thanks.

[Hoyt]

77. Deplorable. Anyone want to guess what candidate this cretin supports?