Yesterday's Weapons Forums

trump was correct -
"Antifa adherents — some armed with sticks and masked in bandannas — played a visible role in the running street battles in Charlottesville, but it is impossible to know how many people count themselves as members of the movement. Its followers acknowledge it is secretive, without official leaders and organized into autonomous local cells. It is also only one in a constellation of activist movements that have come together in the past several months to the fight the far right.
Driven by a range of political passions — including anticapitalism, environmentalism, and gay and indigenous rights — the diverse collection of anarchists, communists and socialists has found common cause in opposing right-wing extremists and white supremacists. In the fight against the far right, antifa has allied itself at times with local clergy, members of the Black Lives Matter movement and grass-roots social-justice activists. It has also supported niche groups like Black Bloc fighters, who scrapped with right-wing forces in Berkeley this year, and By Any Means Necessary, a coalition formed more than two decades ago to protest California’s ban on affirmative action for universities."
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two local stories -
ST. CLOUD, Minn. (KNSI) - As the one year anniversary of the St. Cloud mall attack approaches, St. Cloud's mayor and police chief are praising the city for coming together after the incident.

"I think St. Cloud is a shining example of what community really is," said St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson.

"I think that communities all over this great nation can take a page out of our book with respect to cohesion and inclusion and respect."

The chief says even when St. Cloud residents disagree, they do so respectfully.

"That's the beauty of this nation. You are free to have your opinions and thoughts about any issue, without fear of reprisal."

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ST. CLOUD, Minn. (KNSI) - A group of more than 50 protesters picketed outside the Granite City Baptist Church as a former Muslim and now a Christian pastor gave a speech titled The Trojan Horse of Interfaith Dialogue.

Shahram Hadian left Iran with his family in 1978 before the Islamic revolution and says political correctness on the topic of Islam needs to stop.

The protesters held signs in front of the church that read Racists Not Welcome, Christians Against Islamophobia and Make Racisim Wrong Again.

Rachel Melis from St. Cloud came out to the protest to support her Muslim neighbors and says Hadian's message is one of white supremacy.

"The speaker in my mind is here to foment hate, and to further a white supremacist agenda that would create more fear," Melis said.

She went on to say that as a white person she feels it's important to fight white supremacy.

Inside the church it was an overflow crowd that were on hand for Hadian's speech.

Tom Krieg from St. Cloud was hoping some of the protesters would go inside to listen.

"They're going to learn the truth, instead of trying to shout down the truth which has been their focus right from the beginning," Krieg said.

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free speech ? -

when a group of conservative commentators descend on the college campus for “Free Speech Week,” a four-day conference featuring former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, writer Ann Coulter and conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

how much they will spend on security, the number is expected to far surpass the $600,000 spent for the Shapiro speech as the college town has been hit this year by a number of violent – and costly -- protests targeting conservative speakers.
In February, black-clad Antifa protesters vandalized university buildings and started fires to prevent Yiannopoulos from giving a speech on campus. The violence forced the cancellation of his speech. In April, Coulter cancelled a speech at the school after the Young America’s Foundation pulled its support for the event amid threats of violence.

Then in August, a group of around 100 hooded members of Antifa stormed what had been a largely peaceful Berkeley rally for free speech and attacked at least five people, including the leader of a politically conservative group that had canceled an event a day earlier in San Francisco to avoid potential violence.

Shapiro’s speech on Thursday went off relatively peacefully, although Berkeley police did arrest nine people – three on weapons-related charges.

“We’ve never seen a situation like this,” said UC-Berkeley’s new chancellor, Carol Christ, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It’s very unique. It’s a very different political dynamic where free speech … at Berkeley has become the occasion for the right and left to confront each other.”


Some – including conservatives who have had their speeches interrupted or canceled amid the protests – blame the school and Berkeley police for fostering an atmosphere that has allowed Antifa and other violent left-wing groups to wreak havoc "

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"..BERKELEY, Calif. — On the morning of the protest, Sean Hines woke with a sense of purpose he’d seldom felt. He was a 20-year-old high school dropout with no car, no job and no money. A year and a half ago, he’d been arrested for a drunken brawl. Now Hines was about to be arrested again, but for something he believed in.

In his Santa Rosa halfway house, Hines dressed in all black. He chugged an energy drink, popped some nicotine gum and climbed into a friend’s car that blasted German punk rock as it barreled toward Berkeley.
“Alerta, alerta, anti-fascista!” the chorus shrieked.
It was a call to arms for militant anti-fascists, or “antifa” — and Hines was heeding it.
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But the Aug. 27 protest in Berkeley did not go according to plan. Police quickly arrested Hines and 12 others. Then, in images broadcast across the country, more than 100 antifa activists leapt over barricades and stormed Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, attacking a handful of President Trump supporters and right-wing activists.
A month earlier, few Americans had heard of antifa. Then came Charlottesville, where antifa activists were credited with protecting clergy members from attacks by white supremacists.
The violence in Berkeley led to a backlash, including from the left. The city’s mayor, a Democrat, called for antifa to be classified as a gang and for the University of California at Berkeley to cancel conservative speeches later this month to avoid more violence.
In Washington, where antifa smashed storefronts and torched a limousine on Inauguration Day, authorities fear the far-left activists will strike again Saturday, when the Mall will host the “Juggalo March” — a gathering of fans of the rap group Insane Clown Posse — and a pro-Trump event dubbed the Mother of All Rallies.
If Trump’s election has emboldened the far right, then it has also energized its enemies.
Hidden behind masks, however, antifa activists remain mysterious. Are they everyday citizens guarding against the rise of a Fourth Reich? Or are they, as Trump has claimed, merely the “alt-left” — a lawless mirror image of the white supremacists they oppose?
On Thursday, Trump claimed recent antifa antics had justified his much-criticized response to Charlottesville, in which he blamed the violence on “both sides.”
“I think, especially in light of the advent of antifa, if you look at what’s going on there, you have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also, and essentially that’s what I said,” he told reporters Thursday.
Interviews with a dozen antifa activists show they come from a variety of backgrounds and are only loosely affiliated. Some, like Hines, are youths in search of a cause. Others have been demonstrating for decades. Many are anarchists, although some vote. They employ a range of peaceful tactics, including doxing, or exposing, white supremacists. While they are all open to using violence, some embrace it — even glorify it.
What unites them is the belief that free speech is secondary to squashing fascism before it takes root in the United States.
“If everyone is punching a Nazi, it’s eventually going to create a mass militant movement based around anti-fascist,” Hines said. “That hopefully will be enough to stop them from gaining power.”

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i think , that these are no different that hitlers brown shirts in the late 30s , if we had taught history they would not be here , i fear for my kids and grandkids , good thing is we are armed ,

they may find me dead in a ditch b8ut i will be covered in brass