Heavily-armed man hanging out near school bus stop totally not trying to scare anyone ;-)

This is not The Onion. Or Texas. This is Severn, Maryland.

The man, J’den McAdory, told the I-Team on Thursday he’s protesting the governor’s new gun control law. He said he began walking the sidewalks in Severn a few months ago, first with his shotgun strapped to his back, and now, with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle in his hands.

His 2nd Amendment freedoms are so impinged that what he is doing is 100% legal. I must say though, I have never seen anyone taking their pet long gun for walkies in this state, even in the deep red bits where I know Mr. McAdory would be given the hirsute ocular organ by the locals.

So what is he protesting? The fact that he won’t be able to enter a school, hospital or someone’s home with a gun unless he has permission to do so? The fact that he needs to take steps to make sure a minor can’t access his guns? He doesn’t say, of course.

But his “protest” can only be accomplished by parading around near a school bus stop. And when that was no longer enough to push whatever broken buttons he has in his head, he continued his “protest” by approaching school children to tell them he isn’t going to hurt them.

I am still not quoting The Onion.

McAdory said he walked up to students at a bus stop Thursday morning to say he’s not a threat, telling them,” I don’t know what the school’s been telling you guys, but I’m really no threat to you guys, no harm at all.”

When asked if he could understand how parents and children might be afraid seeing him armed by the bus stop, McAdory told the I-Team: “I do understand. So, I talked to the kids this morning at 7 a.m. right at that bus stop over there with the AR-15.”

This is the America Republicans want. Strangers toting enough firepower to take out a neighborhood can terrify school children in the name of freedom. But anyone who so much as hints that sticking a toe outside of cisheterosexual gender norms is no one’s fucking business is treated as an intolerable threat to children.

And for parents and other people who aren’t swayed by the “I can only protest my gun rights by reminding kids of Sandy Hook” argument, McAdory has another appeal.

Vigilantism!

His neighbors can take comfort in the knowledge that they and their children might be killed when a dickhead who lacks the sense God gave a cabbage looses off at some possible bad guys – or a fox rummaging in the garbage.

“I really want people to understand,” he said. “I mean no harm to no one. I’m actually a deterrent away from the crime we always have here.”

Sure asshole. The crime in question was children waiting for the bus. The little whelps were loitering! And you helped clear that right up.

He also said his local neighborhood pays for a police officer to park in the area most nights to deter crime. But McAdory said he and other neighbors can do that for free.

And yet he hasn’t tried to convince the police he’ll take over. Oh that’s right. They’re adults. And they have guns too.

People who post off-topic comments here instead of in the open thread are incorrigible dingleberries.