According to Firearm Chronicles
I bet if you polled the staff of the Triad City Beat newspaper in North Carolina about whether or not we should be putting people in jail for non-violent, minor offenses at the moment, you’d get an almost unanimous “No” in response. They’d likely argue that it’s cruel to put people behind bars for low-level crimes at a time when the coronavirus is raging in many penal institutions, or at least a bad idea.
But if you polled the same staff members about arresting people for protesting while armed in North Carolina, you’d get resounding agreement with the idea. The paper’s come out with an editorial bemoaning the fact that a small group of armed protestors didn’t get arrested by local police recently, despite a state law in North Carolina that prohibits protesting while armed.
the officers from the Raleigh police and the Capitol police — always on the lookout to prevent citizens from getting arrested, so it would seem — warned these men of this statute when they arrived on the scene, and further explained that if they put away their signs, then they would not consider this action a protest.
They ditched the signs, kept the guns and then, around noon, marched the few blocks to the General Assembly in what RPD still considers not-a-protest, despite what the protestors themselves said.
But, it seems, everyone except the Raleigh police knew exactly what this was: a “call to arms,” according to an organizers’ Facebook page, a “boogaloo” — which is weird, fanboy slang for the next civil war, jargonized into bastardizations like “blue igloo” or “big luau.” In a sly wink to their cute, little code word, some of the protestors were wearing Hawaiian shirts.
Ordinarily, the editors of the City Beat would be praising officers for their de-escalation tactics, but for some reason when it comes to dealing with a group that supposedly seeks conflict with law enforcement, the editors want police to ratchet up their use of force and crack some skulls. Weird how that works, isn’t it?