Black-bloc-clad antifa protesters carrying “guns, bats, skateboards” attacked cars and trucks participating in a “freedom rally caravan” in front of the Oregon State Capitol building on Sunday afternoon. No one called the massing of weapons, personnel, offensive weapons, defensive gas masks, and ballistic vests an “insurrection,” however.
…Except for military expert, retired US Army Reserve Lt. Colonel, Tony Shaffer, who wondered, perhaps tongue in cheek, where the National Guard was to put down the planned violence by antifa.
Insurrection…
Where is the National Guard? https://t.co/HcEPS0dw1B— Tony Shaffer (@T_S_P_O_O_K_Y) March 29, 2021
Vehicles bearing Gadsden and American flags were attacked, including a pickup truck bearing a window sticker reading “Don’t Portland My Oregon.”
"Don't Portland My Oregon" pic.twitter.com/DTRUCGpTBh
— Victoria Taft – Parler, Minds, Facebook, 5VTShow (@VictoriaTaft) March 29, 2021
The truck was pelted with paint and beaten with bats. The driver got out and brandished a gun. As antifa called “gun! gun!” police, who had up to this point remained on the sidelines hoping for peace, moved into action, ordering the man to the ground.
“If he was black, he’d be dead!” #Antifa are upset the police did not kill the man outside the Oregon state Capitol. pic.twitter.com/qPPB22NmSm
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) March 29, 2021
That man was stopped but not arrested. Nor was he shot by the taser-wielding police officer, which upset at least one live-streamer who cried, “if he were black he’d be dead by now!”
Antifa insurgents smashed the driver’s side window of another truck flying the pro-police Thin Blue Line flag. Later, they used a large branch to impale the windshield.
#Antifa impaled the red truck with a large tree branch during their mob attack on the vehicle outside the Oregon state capitol. There was a female passenger in the vehicle at the time who was nearly killed. #AntifaRiots pic.twitter.com/WZARAZoT5A
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) March 29, 2021
Police say the antifa members planned the assaults in advance, urging people to come to create a “fascist free 503,” the 503 referring to Oregon’s legacy area code, to counter-protest the “freedom rally.” The latest clash was planned to stop the flag-wavers – known by antifa as “fascists” – proving again that antifa isn’t anti-fascist as much as it’s anti-First Amendment.
Salem Police said in a news release that the fenced-off capitol building was becoming a “draw for demonstrations and protestors.”
The first event billed as the Freedom Rally appeared on social media streams in February. A second event appeared soon after, named Fascist Free 503, indicating a counter response to the Freedom Rally. Social media posts connected to the group indicated their intention to prevent the Freedom Rally caravan from meeting at the state capitol.
Shortly before noon, approximately 100 individuals wearing black clothing and ballistic vests and carrying firearms, bats, skateboards, umbrellas, shields and gas masks arrived on the capitol mall grounds. Some individuals from the group carried Youth Liberation Front flags, a group known to espouse leftwing ideologies. The group congregated along Court Street in front of the capitol building.
You can argue the wisdom of the man getting out of his truck to confront the people attacking attacking it, but this, as well as the case of Michael Strickland before it, points to a deeply troubling question revealing itself in America: what is happening to self-defense?
Media executive Tom Elliott said, “self defense, a human right dating back more than 2,000 years, has been rescinded.”
Self defense *is* on the ropes, but Andy reports this man wasn’t charged. Yet.
— Victoria Taft – Parler, Minds, Facebook, 5VTShow (@VictoriaTaft) March 29, 2021
While I pointed out that the man had not been arrested – yet — the point should not be lost. Self-defense is on trial in America. It’s on trial in Missouri with the McCloskey case. In the Michael Strickland case in Portland, Oregon, in which he pulled a gun (never firing) to stop an advancing antifa mob, the judge determined that what antifa did didn’t matter, Strickland pulled a gun “inappropriately” and that made him guilty. Self-defense was essentially tossed from the courtroom.
The Oregon man who got out of his truck to brush back the mob by brandishing his gun may find out that self-defense is on tenuous grounds in Wokeville. But his “Don’t Portland My Oregon” sticker shows he more than understands the stakes.
Victoria Taft is the host of “The Adult in the Room Podcast With Victoria Taft” where you can hear her series on “Antifa Versus Mike Strickland.” Find it here. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, MeWe, Minds @VictoriaTaft
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