Posted on 07/02/2019 3:49:40 AM PDT by reaganaut1
I’d urge everyone to read my colleague Jim Geraghty’s post on the thuggery this weekend in Portland. It was appalling to watch masked Antifa thugs attack Andy Ngo, and it was also appalling that the police weren’t immediately present to arrest his attackers. Antifa’s propensity to violence is well known, and while I’d love to hear a sympathetic explanation for the absence of police, the lack of response looks a lot like a dereliction of duty.
There is, however, a simple and well-known legal reform that will go a long way towards deterring Antifa violence — even when police aren’t close by, but iPhones are. It’s called an anti-masking law. They’ve long existed in the South as a check on Klan violence, and they not only make it easier for police to immediately identify and arrest criminals, they also allow witnesses to preserve the pictures and videos of violent attackers for later criminal or civil action.
When I tweeted over the weekend in support of an anti-masking ordinance in Oregon, a number of correspondents asked me if the laws were consistent with First Amendment protections for anonymous speech. The answer is generally (though not always) yes, and there’s relatively recent on-point case law in the Second Circuit saying so. While court of appeals cases aren’t nationally dispositive, the panel in Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan v. Kerik included Sonia Sotomayor, and its reasoning is instructive.
New York’s anti-masking law predates the Klan, tracing its history back to an 1845 effort to combat violent Hudson Valley farmers. The statute essentially prevents gatherings of masked people unless they’re gathering for a “masquerade party or like entertainment.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Well, duh.
Of course unmasking would work. And you don’t need to be a legal scholar to get this.
The courts have even upheld cases in which liquor stores have prohibited entry by supposedly muslim women with their faces fully covered.
It’s a no brainer that even an Obama appointee can understand. The state has a far more compelling interest in preventing violent crime than it does in protecting an imaginary 1A right to mask your identity while engaging in acts of violence.
David French just can’t get over himself.
The video at the link is instructive. The contrast between those Alabama police and the ineffectual Portland cops is striking.
Antifa types do NOT like to go around with their face visible, it inconveniences their ability to commit their crimes anonymously.
Another all talk no action GOPE Republipussy talking tough
That would be the best approach to this process since today’s FBI is being made into. Knitting circle by Wray.
Their heads need to be broken, these cowards are picking on defenseless people young and old, they have not come up against young bull patriots yet
Cut off their money at the same time, or we’ll just see ever-replenishing rent-a-mobs.
The man is worse than a broken clock, but he got this one right.
“....There is, however, a simple and well-known legal reform...”
Veru simple...Barr should arrest the miserzble prick mayor for deprivation of civil r8fgts. Next case.b
Only in today’s political climate can we call a bunch of hooligans running around committing crimes free speech rights. They are not expressing any political speech by vandalizing cars and business and assaulting people. That’s just good old fashioned mob violence.
The Mayor of Portland : inciting Riots by ordering the police to Stand Down .
I think we should start referring to them as Klantifa - because that’s what they are. Keep repeating it to make it a meme.
Yep. Who is funding them? Make those people into criminals. Arrest them, but politicians aren’t interested in reforming the toilet they swim in.
These people don't understand OPSEC very well. They do this ONLY because Communist mole government officials cover for them.
Hat tip to FReeper crazieman
Sounds good, and Portland officials are fools if they don’t do it.
“When I tweeted over the weekend in support of an anti-masking ordinance in Oregon, a number of correspondents asked me if the laws were consistent with First Amendment protections for anonymous speech.”
It’s giving the masked cowards freedom of violence, which is not in my copy of the Constitution.
What is going to happen is one or more of these thugs is going to run upon a CCW carrier and they will be killed..Then listen to them cry me a river...
Wasn’t French going to run against Trump in 16 ? Boy am I glad he didn’t succeed. Riight.
“Portlantifa” - by Mark Steyn
https://www.steynonline.com/9504/portlantifa
“The consent of the latter is especially important: in the Democrats’ northern fiefdoms the cops increasingly behave as they did in the party’s old southern fiefdoms - they’re there not to keep the peace but to ensure that their buddies in the Klan - whoops, sorry, I mean Klantifa - get to give the designated “troublemakers” a bloody good hiding.”
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