Just The Nightly Show (Ferguson)

It’s really hard to know what to say about Ferguson.  On the one hand I don’t seem to be finding a firm answer to my question- did the guy the cops shot really have a gun?  Do you remember the Molotov cocktail at the 3 am news conference last year, where they displayed a bottle of liquid with a rag in it and clamed this was an actual, factual gasoline bomb they had recovered that night and then proceeded to man handle it as if it had no forensic value at all?

You know, you’d think if they wanted to become cops they would have watched at least one cop show in the last 30 years.

Other than that teeny tiny sliver of good faith on my part (I don’t think most cops are liars, I know it) the news is that things are, if anything, worse.  The capper for me is that they’re letting armed vigilantes roam the streets in cammo and body armor because they are…

Wait for it.

White!  Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Missouri has always had very flexible rules about open carry and it’s always a great pleasure when I venture South to discover that everyone doesn’t wander in to the Waffle House (Waffle House!) packing a Peacemaker as a cosplay codpiece in their own personal Rio Bravo fantasy of frontier justice.

They have just relaxed their restrictions on concealed carry about which part of me asks- if I’m using a gun as a deterrent, why wouldn’t I want people to know I’m packing heat?  That’s right, I like that Buntline Special with the barrel that pokes into your boot tops.

There is another part of me that wonders- so what if I’m Black?  How exactly does that interaction go?

“Officer- you need to know I have a permit”?

My instinct is- not well.

You stop being racist and I’ll stop talking about it.

Our panel tonight is Jordan Carlos, Regina Hall, and Carey Reilly.