If J’Den McAdory was looking to raise attention to the new restrictions on the right to carry in Maryland, he’s certainly succeeded.
Lots of folks are talking about his open carrying an AR-style rifle on the suburban streets of Severn, with lefties predictably melting down not only over his one-man activism, but the local TV reporter who dared to talk not just to McAdory’s critics but the man itself.
Both sides?
Side one: The kids are scared by a man with a gun.
Side two: A man with a gun is scaring the kids.
There you have it. Now we'll go to Scotty Sh*tstorm with the weather. 🙄
— Craig Rozniecki (@CraigRozniecki) May 19, 2023
There are zero both sides here. Do you people ever listen to yourselves? Click bait and not journalism.
— 🌺🗽⚜️Defend Democracy⚜️🌺🗽 (@Kimmi1965) May 19, 2023
A man is terrorizing parents & elementary school students at a bus stop with a fucking AR-15 and this fucking news station is going to have its audience “hear from both sides.” https://t.co/55vjBL8Vuk
— Scott Hechinger 🆓 (@ScottHech) May 19, 2023
Nope. There is no “both sides” here. https://t.co/VjDaziguBr
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) May 19, 2023
Is McAdory’s activism actually helpful to the cause of Second Amendment advocates? Not in my opinion, but he’s well within his rights to do so and has posed no threat to any kids, parents, or passerby in the weeks that he’s been engaged in his protest.
No, what really struck me about the outrage over McAdory’s actions is that none of these folks seem particularly concerned (or even aware) about another recent incident involving a gun and Maryland students; this one an assault and attempted murder on a school bus allegedly committed by a trio of teenagers illegally armed with at least one firearm.
On Monday, May 1, police said three masked teens jumped a 14-year-old boy on a Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) bus. The 14-year-old was the last remaining student on the bus, according to authorities.
One of the masked teens pointed a gun at the boy and pulled the trigger three times.
All three times, the gun didn’t fire. Police later found three live rounds on the bus.
When the gun failed to fire on command, the attackers physically beat the 14-year-old. When the attackers ran off, the driver moved the bus to a safe area.
“This was an attempted murder, plain and simple. Call it what it is,” Martin Diggs, head of the bus drivers’ union, said at the time.
Police have now arrested a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old in connection with the attack, while they continue their search for the third assailant. The pair have been charged with attempted first and second-degree murder, as well as assault and gun charges.
So where’s the outrage over these acts, which unlike McAdory’s protest clearly involve acts of violence… not to mention a failure of Maryland’s existing gun control laws? It’s nowhere to be seen, at least on social media, unlike the performative anger over McAdory’s antics that have been on full display by anti-gun progressives.
In a way, this is a perfect microcosm of the gun control debate at large. The left is so focused on the legal gun owner doing something they don’t like that they completely ignore the illegal acts committed by teens too young to lawfully purchase or possess a gun in the first place; and their “solution” is more gun control laws aimed at the law-abiding while remaining blissfully and willfully ignorant of the fact that Maryland’s strict gun laws have done nothing to stem the violence in places like Baltimore and Prince George’s County. Their feigned or misguided concern for the plight of Severn schoolkids who might spot McAdory standing on a sidewalk with his modern sporting rifle is belied by the utter lack of interest in cases like the bus attack in Prince George’s County.
A 14-year-old was nearly murdered by teens who had no fear of the consequences and no problem getting their hands on a gun despite the state’s “universal background check” law, handgun qualification license, and other restrictions on legal gun owners. That seems like a much bigger problem than any of McAdory’s actions to me, but I have a feeling that the Democrats in control of the state government would disagree, and I’ll bet we’ll see a crack down on the open carry of rifles long before lawmakers do anything to substantively address the troubling rise in juvenile crime.
