Elk Grove Boulevard further congested by attempts at free speech – ‘F@ck your 2nd Amendment’
By Michael Monasky | Guest Contributor |
Around noon today a solitary protester, seen with a simple, clear message on a poster board, declared his disgust for the Second Amendment to the US Constitution; it read,
“Fuck your 2nd Amendment.”
A city motorcycle cop announced on his public address speaker to the protester “That’s not very nice.” As he strolled with his message down Elk Grove Boulevard, Jarrett Simpson declared that he’s been a lifelong resident of Elk Grove. “I’ve lived here since I was 12 years old. I went to Joseph Kerr (Middle School).”
Free speech versus the right to bear arms: trying to spark a conversation.
A woman protested his use of an expletive on his sign, complaining that her second grade grandchild attends a school nearby and might see the f-word and have to explain its meaning to the child. She said “you’re taking away from the discussion (of the Second Amendment) by using that word.” Simpson said, “you’ll have to explain it eventually…I have an eleven year old son; he’s heard bad words; I didn’t cuss in front of him until he was about five. And anytime he heard a bad word I explained to him what it meant. I explained that he shouldn’t say these words, and then we moved on.”
Simpson explained why he used an expletive of disgust: “The word ‘fuck’ brings attention to the rest of the sign.” When asked about reactions from passersby, he said “I’ve been threatened for the last two hours that I’ve been out here. One guy threatened me, made a U-turn and we had a discussion about it, but he was friendly after that.” Simpson added that his intended audience is the supporters of the Second Amendment.
Simpson denied that there was a particular part of the Second Amendment that he opposed, such as militias or other conditions of gun ownership. “So in totality I’m against all of it. But if we want to start, I’d say we ought to stop selling machine guns, and that would be the beginning of it.”
When asked about militias, he said “They can be militias, just take their guns away; they can do whatever they want. They’d just be a group of people…Ever since the last shooting I’ve cried, I got angry. I didn’t know what to do with my emotions, so I’ve done something like this before to where I’ve held a sign and walked or run down the street with a sign as I jogged. So why not do this?”
We’re coming upon the 77th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the city of Nagasaki, August 9, 1945. While tens of thousands of Japanese munitions workers died in the firebombings, many multiple tens of thousands of non-combatants were incinerated in the aftermath of the dropping of a bomb nicknamed “Fat Man.”
Although the Second Amendment mitigates neither collateral damage nor civilian death in time of war, there appear to be many who share Mr. Simpson’s sentiments about the right of non-combatant citizens to bear and own weapons of war, like automatic rifles. Although threatened by some passersby, many others honked in support of his message.
