Merca.

[Collector1337]

Sanity prevails.

Sanity?

And what would you know about sanity?

[Collector1337]

Sounds like a good decision by the Gilberton Borough council.

No, it really isn't.

The only thing they have him possibly doing, is shooting guns that aren't technically his. If it's for that, then it's one thing.

But to deny someone their 1st Amendment Rights when they are off the clock, is a fundamental failure.

You might not like what he has to say, but he most certainly has a right to say whatever he wants, just like we do.

It's pretty sad that rights apparently don't matter anymore. The court of public opinion can just do whatever they want. You don't like his politics, so punish him for exercising his freedom of speech.

The irony of it all? That's what his videos are about and that's what he is worried about, the loss of our rights.

Looks like he was right all along. They just made him a martyr.

[Coito ergo sum]

Sounds like a good decision by the Gilberton Borough council.

No, it really isn't.

The only thing they have him possibly doing, is shooting guns that aren't technically his. If it's for that, then it's one thing.

But to deny someone their 1st Amendment Rights when they are off the clock, is a fundamental failure.

No, since the Chief of Police serves at the pleasure of the city council, he can be let go anytime. If they feel he is an embarrassment, even for exercising his free speech, they can let him go.

Plus, they did specifically say it was for misuse of city property. The cities' guns are not his toys.

You might not like what he has to say, but he most certainly has a right to say whatever he wants, just like we do.

And, he can keep right on saying it. But, like, a police chief has a right to say that people should be sent to prison for short stints as a preventative measure and deterrent for crime. He has every right to say it, but he sure as heck can get fired for it.

It's pretty sad that rights apparently don't matter anymore. The court of public opinion can just do whatever they want. You don't like his politics, so punish him for exercising his freedom of speech.

They matter, but having the right to free speech doesn't mean everyone else has to support you.

The irony of it all? That's what his videos are about and that's what he is worried about, the loss of our rights.

Looks like he was right all along. They just made him a martyr.

He was only suspended for 30 days. He didn't lose his job. And, it was for misuse of property, not speaking his mind.

[Robert_S]

You might not like what he has to say, but he most certainly has a right to say whatever he wants, just like we do.

And, he can keep right on saying it. But, like, a police chief has a right to say that people should be sent to prison for short stints as a preventative measure and deterrent for crime. He has every right to say it, but he sure as heck can get fired for it.

[/quote]

Did he say that?

It's pretty sad that rights apparently don't matter anymore. The court of public opinion can just do whatever they want. You don't like his politics, so punish him for exercising his freedom of speech.

They matter, but having the right to free speech doesn't mean everyone else has to support you.

The irony of it all? That's what his videos are about and that's what he is worried about, the loss of our rights.

Looks like he was right all along. They just made him a martyr.

He was only suspended for 30 days. He didn't lose his job. And, it was for misuse of property, not speaking his mind.

Such a minor (IMO) breech might have been ignored or overlooked if he hadn't made those videos. But if you're going to intentionally draw attention to yourself, you can't really bitch when people start paying attention to you.

[Coito ergo sum]

You might not like what he has to say, but he most certainly has a right to say whatever he wants, just like we do.

And, he can keep right on saying it. But, like, a police chief has a right to say that people should be sent to prison for short stints as a preventative measure and deterrent for crime. He has every right to say it, but he sure as heck can get fired for it.

Did he say that?[/quote]

No, I was using an extreme example to make a point. That point being that police chiefs can be fired for what they say.

He was only suspended for 30 days. He didn't lose his job. And, it was for misuse of property, not speaking his mind.

Such a minor (IMO) breech might have been ignored or overlooked if he hadn't made those videos. But if you're going to intentionally draw attention to yourself, you can't really bitch when people start paying attention to you.

Perhaps, or perhaps not. Gilberton is a tiny, tiny village, and the few hundred property tax payers in the town are buying all of his equipment and ammo. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if they have their budget down to some very small numbers. Remember, the total population is about 850 people, and only about 500 of them are between 18 and 65, and not all of them would be taxpayers to the city. If say, each of 400 people paid $1,000 per year in taxes, that would be a total of $400,000 for the total budget of the city, including payroll, office space, utilities, transportation, fuel, jail, office supplies, repairs, security, road work, legal fees, accounting fees, benefits and yes, guns and ammo for the police.

remember what we're dealing with here -- this is podunk, redneck village where the employed ones earn about $24,000 a year. I think the city council's job is probably mostly consumed with managing their small budget, and figuring out what next year's budget can be and how to cut corners to make ends meet.

[Seth]

While I support Kessler's right to say what he wants, and I support the right of the community to either support him or not, and I support the right of the council to suspend or fire him, which is just part of the job, I'm a bit interested in knowing how he convinced the town to let him buy a fully-automatic AK and a fully-automatic Glock with shoulder stock.

Not that I don't think the PD shouldn't be allowed to have them, just whether or not the council really knew what he was doing buying Class III NFA items on the town budget.

The good news is that because it's a police department, they were probably 1/10 the retail price of a civilian-legal transferable machine gun...thanks to the manufacturing ban of 1986. We need to repeal that ban so Joe Average Citizen can buy a brand-new H&K MP-5 for the same 800 bucks the police pay for them.

[pErvinalia]

Any truth to this?:

Welcome to Gilberton, Pennsylvania, where men with loaded guns, propping up a suspended police chief accuse all other citizens of being “tyrants”. It is a place where men with Swastika tattoos claim the “other people” are the Nazis. What, didn’t you hear about this on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, or really anywhere else? Isn’t NPR even interesting in this story? For whatever the reason, no one is touching this. Perhaps the Federal government fears a stand off and doesn’t want this to snowball, or inspire other towns with similar demographics to go the same route. Whatever the reason, this is a true case of media blackout. Here’s what’s going on…

Gilberton, Pennsylvania is a small borough which is currently living under the constant threat of terroristic violence. Armed men block the entrance to public meetings. Public officials openly threaten every member of society who holds a different political view than they do, and councilmen are strip searched and arrested without cause if they don’t fall in line with prevailing opinions.

Anyone who tries to fire the Police Chief is be forced to live in fear of retaliation from a militia of armed terrorists. Pennsylvania police chief Mark Kessler is the head of a political organization which refers to itself as “The Constitution Security Force.“ Kessler was recently given a thirty day suspension, for using police property as props in a video where he threatens and insults “libtards,” otherwise known as people who hold political views which differ from his own.

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below:

In a second video, Kessler can also be seen threatening the life of a federal government official, Secretary of State John Kerry.

On August 1st, Kessler called on the militia to attend a meeting of the Gilberton Borough Council, where disciplinary actions against Kessler (for the videos) were being discussed. A State Police helicopter was called to the scene, as more than a hundred armed men and women arrived at the meeting, brandishing AR-15 assault rifles. Armed members of the microcosmic police state “militia” blocked the doors of the public building where the meeting was held, in order to prevent those who wished to speak from entering. According to the Huffington Post, members of the group ”angrily confronted Michael Morrill of Keystone Progress, who delivered petition signatures from 20,000 Americans who want Kessler fired.”

In an email Morrill explained, “I have been organizing for four decades. I have faced Klansmen in Kentucky, Ustase in Bosnia and police indiscriminately beating demonstrators in Italy. [Wednesday] night in Gilberton was more frightening than any of those situations.”

http://politicalblindspot.com/media-bla ... n-hostage/

[Collector1337]

Any truth to this?:

Welcome to Gilberton, Pennsylvania, where men with loaded guns, propping up a suspended police chief accuse all other citizens of being “tyrants”. It is a place where men with Swastika tattoos claim the “other people” are the Nazis. What, didn’t you hear about this on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, or really anywhere else? Isn’t NPR even interesting in this story? For whatever the reason, no one is touching this. Perhaps the Federal government fears a stand off and doesn’t want this to snowball, or inspire other towns with similar demographics to go the same route. Whatever the reason, this is a true case of media blackout. Here’s what’s going on…

Gilberton, Pennsylvania is a small borough which is currently living under the constant threat of terroristic violence. Armed men block the entrance to public meetings. Public officials openly threaten every member of society who holds a different political view than they do, and councilmen are strip searched and arrested without cause if they don’t fall in line with prevailing opinions.

Anyone who tries to fire the Police Chief is be forced to live in fear of retaliation from a militia of armed terrorists. Pennsylvania police chief Mark Kessler is the head of a political organization which refers to itself as “The Constitution Security Force.“ Kessler was recently given a thirty day suspension, for using police property as props in a video where he threatens and insults “libtards,” otherwise known as people who hold political views which differ from his own.

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below:

In a second video, Kessler can also be seen threatening the life of a federal government official, Secretary of State John Kerry.

On August 1st, Kessler called on the militia to attend a meeting of the Gilberton Borough Council, where disciplinary actions against Kessler (for the videos) were being discussed. A State Police helicopter was called to the scene, as more than a hundred armed men and women arrived at the meeting, brandishing AR-15 assault rifles. Armed members of the microcosmic police state “militia” blocked the doors of the public building where the meeting was held, in order to prevent those who wished to speak from entering. According to the Huffington Post, members of the group ”angrily confronted Michael Morrill of Keystone Progress, who delivered petition signatures from 20,000 Americans who want Kessler fired.”

In an email Morrill explained, “I have been organizing for four decades. I have faced Klansmen in Kentucky, Ustase in Bosnia and police indiscriminately beating demonstrators in Italy. [Wednesday] night in Gilberton was more frightening than any of those situations.”

http://politicalblindspot.com/media-bla ... n-hostage/

AR-15s aren't "assault" rifles.

[piscator]

AR-15s aren't "assault" rifles.

Not to devolve into semantic minutiae, but what does the "AR" in "AR-15" stand for?

[Hermit]

AR-15s aren't "assault" rifles.

Not to devolve into semantic minutiae, but what does the "AR" in "AR-15" stand for?

The relevant Wikipedia article describes the AR-15 as an assault rifle, but there are many variations of the model. "AR" stands for "Armalite", the original manufacturer.

[Collector1337]

AR-15s aren't "assault" rifles.

Not to devolve into semantic minutiae, but what does the "AR" in "AR-15" stand for?

A hilariously clueless question. I guess google is really hard to use.

[piscator]

AR-15s aren't "assault" rifles.

Not to devolve into semantic minutiae, but what does the "AR" in "AR-15" stand for?

A hilariously clueless question. I guess google is really hard to use.

Don't get defensive. I'm an Alaskan who doesn't pay much attention to little plastic toys.
I like my .375 though. More of a pusher than a kicker. Kind of loud, heavy, a little spendy to shoot, will kill the hell out of whatever you point it at - moose, bears, Freightliners, it don't give a fuck.

What do you do with an AR-type, besides buy lasers and lights 'n shit to hang off it? They suck balls for making meat. I figured it was house to house fighting, DAs, commando raids and shit... I hear you can drop $2500 putting together a nice .308 on an AR lower, MK11-style. With a custom load and a good gunsmith, it's supposed to shoot almost as well as a Model 77 from WalMart. What do serious badasses like you say?

[mistermack]

What do you do with an AR-type, besides buy lasers and lights 'n shit to hang off it?

You hold it in one hand, while you masturbate with the other. Obviously.

[Collector1337]

AR-15s aren't "assault" rifles.

Not to devolve into semantic minutiae, but what does the "AR" in "AR-15" stand for?

A hilariously clueless question. I guess google is really hard to use.

Don't get defensive. I'm an Alaskan who doesn't pay much attention to little plastic toys.
I like my .375 though. More of a pusher than a kicker. Kind of loud, heavy, a little spendy to shoot, will kill the hell out of whatever you point it at - moose, bears, Freightliners, it don't give a fuck.

What do you do with an AR-type, besides buy lasers and lights 'n shit to hang off it? They suck balls for making meat. I figured it was house to house fighting, DAs, commando raids and shit... I hear you can drop $2500 putting together a nice .308 on an AR lower, MK11-style. With a custom load and a good gunsmith, it's supposed to shoot almost as well as a Model 77 from WalMart. What do serious badasses like you say?

Well, as already stated, "AR" in AR-15 is short for "ArmaLite." The original manufacturer that Eugene Stoner, the inventor, worked for.

I think it's funny when people ask the question, "What do you do with an AR, anyway?"

In a word... everything.

People have their biases, preferences, and opinions about firearms, just like anything else. I have a .357 too, it's a Ruger GP100.

A better question is what can't an AR do. You want to hunt with it? Then use a 77gr BTHP round with a proper twist barrel. If it's for deer, you don't even need that. Any non-FMJ round is good enough.

Yeah, you can certainly put together a .308 AR, but for $2500? It's way cheaper than that. $2500 for a gold plated one perhaps.

You never need a gunsmith for an AR... ever. That's part of the beauty of an AR. Or, custom hand loads either.

[Seth]

AR-15s aren't "assault" rifles.

Not to devolve into semantic minutiae, but what does the "AR" in "AR-15" stand for?

The relevant Wikipedia article describes the AR-15 as an assault rifle, but there are many variations of the model. "AR" stands for "Armalite", the original manufacturer.

Wikipedia is a ass.

The M-16 is an "assault rifle." The AR-15 is a semi-automatic sporting rifle identical in function to every other semi-automatic rifle of any design ever made that happens to externally resemble the M-16 assault rifle.

The M-16 and it's variants are select-fire assault rifles capable of both semi-automatic, fully-automatic or burst-fire.

The term "assault rifle" or "assault weapon" has been misapplied to the AR-15 and other semi-automatic sporting rifles which LOOK LIKE military full-auto versions quite deliberately by the hoplophobes and anti-gunners. It's done as a part of good old fashion Marxist Big Lie tactics; tell a lie often and loud enough and it will become the perceived truth.

It's a politically-loaded term intended to frighten the credulous non-gun owners merely because such sporting rifles LOOK LIKE "assault rifles" and are therefore very scary and should be banned.