The recent suicide of Aaron Bushnell outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. drew a lot of commentary. Someone setting themselves on fire is alien to most Americans and calls into question the sanity of the “protester.” His suicide brought out plenty of the unhinged who cheered him on calling him “heroic.”
But, there’s another aspect of the incident that people are weaponizing against both police and America’s gun culture in general. Here’s an example of a Chinese state-run media propagandist putting his two 元 in:
WHY? Why was a US officer pointing a gun at #AaronBushnell, the US airman who set himself on fire?
The whole scene just looks like Israel’s behavior:
Israel claims to “defend itself” but the target it’s aiming is almost being consumed by fire. pic.twitter.com/FXg9Cs6YZP
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) February 27, 2024
There are also people using this aspect of the incident to besmirch gun ownership in general . . .
In a nutshell, "America doesn't need a gun, it needs an extinguisher". RIP Aaron Bushnell#FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/F5zKWxgBNg
— Mohamad Al Shami محمد الشامي (@mamashami) February 26, 2024
That the cops steadily held their guns pointed at Aaron Bushnell while he was engulfed in flames, instead of exterminating the fire, is a true encapsulation of the USA.
— Dr. Lawren is Openly Black (@pedsmd2b) February 26, 2024
One thing these people all have in common is that they don’t understand the situation officer or security personnel were in when something like this happens. What the responding man — probably embassy security — did by pointed a gun at Bushnell while others ran for fire extinguishers wasn’t only reasonable, but it was probably a very good idea.
First off, it’s easy to know in hindsight, now that Bushnell is dead, that Bushnell only intended to burn himself. We have the full video available where we get to see him explain what he’s about to do.
The responding officer, on the other hand, hadn’t seen that. All he knew was that a man had himself on fire. He had no idea at that point whether it was an act of protest or the beginning of a terrorist attack. Jumping into the situation without at least one person watching out for everyone else’s safety would be madness.
It’s not a huge logical leap to go from the presence of fire outside of an embassy to the detonation of a bomb. Was the guy going to blow himself up at the last minute? Would he try to grab someone else try to take them with him? Again, ritual suicide by self-immolation isn’t common in the United States, so the officer had to rely on instinct.
If Bushnell had reached for a device to activate a bomb or tried to grab someone else, shooting him would have been both reasonable and necessary. That didn’t happen and the man with the gun (who was likely an embassy security guard) didn’t fire. But, before it was all over, Bushnell probably wished someone had shot him. Burning to death is one of the most painful deaths possible.
At the end of the day, the real truth here is that leftists who cheered Bushnell’s deranged act are always happy to have something to be angry about. There’s no talking reason to people of that mindset. They weren’t there, and didn’t have to worry about what else the burning man might have had planned.
Bushnell had made a choice to die, but those around him had to worry, first and foremost, about staying alive and making sure he didn’t take others with him.
11 Responses
F*ing cops. The police are the standing army the Founders warned us about.
I agree about the standing army. But these were guards, not cops. You need to think before bloviating.
“Someone setting themselves on fire is alien to most Americans and calls into question the sanity of the “protester.””
It’s a stark reminder of how intoxicating the Kool-Aid is of the supposedly-‘Woke’. That a supposedly-sane individual would self-immolate in a ‘protest’ supporting a proven genocidal state… 🙁
This video sums things up :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4
One headline :
“Reckless lefties celebrate Aaron Bushnell’s suicide — and don’t care if it prompts copycats”
The good news is, if there are copycats, they won’t be Trump supporters… 🙂
I am not a leftist, but I wholeheartedly hope there are copycats.
That is a really sad ideology. Those people need help. Notice how that guy used the “colonizer” language. In the Black Panther movies, the black people refer to white people as colonizers. Will that help with “love, acceptance, and inclusion?” They love planting seeds with their propaganda. Oh it’s coming here. They’re working on it. 2020 was a warmup. They’ll do anything for power. Look at history.
P.S. The British were the colonizers in Palestine. These people don’t even understand history. When the Brits left, there was a fight for control, just as there has been in just about every country on the planet. The Palestinian Arabs have been hateful losers ever since, passing on their hatred to their children and grandchildren. Why didn’t they turn their existing territories into patches of paradise instead of third world hell holes? Answer: their existence isn’t consumed with making things better for their own people. It’s consumed with hatred of their neighbors.
The colonizers were the Ottoman Empire (whose own homeland is thousands of miles away in Central Asia, and who also colonized parts of Europe). The British held a League of Nations (UN-equivalent) mandate for a few decades, acting as a peacekeeping force in certain former provinces following the Ottomans’ defeat and dissolution.
And the Romans, the Babylonians, etc. Technically the Brits weren’t colonizing Palestine, but they were known as a colonizing force in the world while they occupied the area. And they apparently did overstay their welcome. Jewish terrorists were bombing them toward the end. The Jews getting Israel was actually a case of the natives sending the colonizers packing, which was my point, though not articulated well. Getting Israel back was a win against the (usual) colonizers. You would think the “anti-colonizers” would appreciate that.
The history-illiterate lefty protestors don’t understand that because they don’t want to understand it. That colonizer-oppressor language is nothing more than Marxist class struggle language. Marxism has morphed into an identity struggle. Lighter skinned = colonizer. Darker skinned = oppressed. Because Israel is a much nicer place to be than say, the West Bank, then Israel must be oppressing the Palestinians. It can’t possibly be that the Palestinians elected terrorists to rule over them. It can’t possibly be that Palestinian leaders have profited (think billionaires) from this struggle, thus have zero incentive to change anything. And we keep sending them more “aid” money. If we actually loved them, then we would allow them to suffer the consequences of their choices. That’s called tough love. That’s the only way they’ll ever begin to make different choices.
Spot on, Dude.
I understand and agree with your overall points, especially your last!
The Brits may be regarded as colonizers by the people who blame everyone else for their problems (and have not ruled the land for over 900 years, and were foreign conquerors themselves before that), but 0% of their problems are the fault of people who occupied the land for <30 years.
Definitely more appropriate than what I would have done, whip out a couple sticks and a bag of marshmallows. Maybe break open the cooler full of beer…