We’ve come to expect the anti-gun crowd to get the vapors whenever they see anything resembling a firearm. They see firearms as fetish items and talismans of evil, so it almost makes sense that whenever they catch a glimpse of something gun-related they act like Baron Samedi just stepped onto the scene. It seems that the Boston MBTA Transit Police are getting in on the action now, having arrested a man for the heinous crime of not realizing that punk is something best left in the late 1970’s . . .
According to reports, Kevin Young of Watertown, Massachusetts calmly walked onto a bus, paid his fare, and was expecting an uneventful journey to his destination. What he got instead was a bus full of panicked Bostonians frantically calling 911 and claiming that the quiet rioter had a gun and was going to shoot people. From BPDnews.com:
At about 4:20 PM on Friday July 10, 2015, officers assigned to District D-14 (Brighton) responded to a call for a person with a gun on an MBTA bus in the area of Cambridge and Harvard Streets. Officers learned that the driver had pulled the bus over as passengers began calling 911 when a male suspect boarded the bus with what appeared to be military grade ammunition strapped around his waist. The driver stated that the passengers were in a panic, fearing that the suspect was about to pull out a weapon. The suspect, later identified as Kevin Young, 26, of Watertown, exited the bus and was stopped by police on Penniman Road at which time it was discovered that the ammunition was fake. Officers recovered 69 replica bullets in all. The suspect was wearing what was described as spiked fighting gloves and spiked leather bracelets.
I wasn’t aware that fake bullets were illegal in Boston, but the cops confiscated them anyway. The man was arrested, but word comes that the charges have since been dropped and the man released.
The man has no doubt learned his lesson from this ordeal — namely that the inhabitants of Boston are so hoplophobic that they wet themselves at the mere glimpse of an obviously fake ammo belt and it might be a good idea to leave it at home next time. But isn’t hat the entire point of punk? Challenging authority, breaking norms, thumbing your nose at society? He probably has a new belt on order from Amazon as we speak. God bless America.
blah. Growing up, my grandparents lived in Watertown (Watertown, Newton and Waltham area) and we’d spend a lot of time there. Small community of rowhouses, everyone on the street knew eachother. Parents trusted kids to spend all day at various neighbors and taking the busses and trolleys around the area. Nothing bad ever happened. Crime was low, sometimes a kid would get “a knuckle sandwich”. Wasn’t like this back then (of course)…
Some hipster-jihadist decides to do God’s bidding and now everyone there is on edge.
I keep saying it’s the (successful) stigmatization that’s gonna do us in….
@michelle hipster jihadist? now you’re just throwing together buzzwords
Boston marathon bomber.
Yep. He was jihad before it went mainstream.
“I keep saying it’s the (successful) stigmatization that’s gonna do us in….”
That’s not going to happen as long as Hollywood continues to make sure guns are portrayed as tools, used for good and evil. Big stars and guns continue to make them vast fortunes.
As open carry spreads, normalization of guns becomes more common.
The video game industry is doing yeoman’s work doing much the same as Hollywood’s message but more heavily weighted to the younger crowd.
The situation isn’t as dire as you seem to believe.
The Kids, as The Who once said, “Are Alright”.
But it’s not due to the antis lack of effort, that’s for sure.
that’s kind of passive thinking got us in the situation.
the UN and Europe have different plans for our culture. Our Dicktaker Traitorous BOY King is handing them control of our nation through the TPP and European Free Trade deals. everything else is a Birdie.
Look at the Birdie, while i give away control of every aspect of your life. Look at the Birdie as He just stole yet Another million acres of land rich with resources from our states, 100% illegal BTW.
Look at the Birdie, ignore his slip as he wants Obamacare to be Global.
if TPP passes if people bothered watch them Live on TV (CSPSN) you would hear the UN reps state repeatedly….. the US has to much resources fot its population. the resources are the World’s to use not the USA. they feel Global trade is not enough. ALL resources in their eyes should be “managed” just like the IMF does money. they Demand the US give up control of their economy, labor, education standards, patent law, HEALTHCARE, housing and property rights, all do it can be “managed” for the “greater good”.
oh yeah but 90% of the UN (the vast number of small nations but still count as votes) are Islamic or becoming Islamic. yes Europe so far is not, but they dont use an electoral system. one nation one vote.
they are our Enemies! the USA is the last best hope for the world we created. no matter how messed up it is.
2nd what? it will be gone if we keep this “everything will be OK” attitude toward our world.
Haha, the belt had 69 bullets on it, because of course it did.
Cheers for the link, Nick, I may have to get a belt or two for the next time I go Rambo.
They look like 7.62’s!
I guess the police felt since they had to respond to the scene, they had to arrest this dude for wasting their time. I think they should have just walked away or arrested the passengers on the bus for making false police reports. You know, applied a little common sense (instead of exposing the City to a civil rights action for a false arrest).
This^^
Even though the charges were dropped his life is ruined by the arrest alone. There is no way to keep people from finding out about the arrest once it gets propagated throughout all of the databases out there including those mugshot sites in the Ukraine and elsewhere.
It doesn’t matter if his arrest is expunged or whatever they may call it, it’s out of anyone’s control.
Source: “Arrest-Proof Yourself” By Dale C. Carson, criminal defense attorney and ex-cop.
I doubt “his life is ruined” by this ordeal. Could it possibly come back to bite him someday? Possibly, but to say his life is “ruined” is a bit melodramatic.
Given how violent the media portrays cops these days, we should all be surprised the cops didn’t shoot the guy as soon as he stepped off the bus.
If the police show up to anything in MA, you will be charged with something, anything. Then they let the court system sort it out the next day.
A case of RWP (Riding While Punk)?
Why no, officer, I am NOT concealing a belt-fed machine gun in my pants, but I’m flattered you would think so.
This^
It was just an erection!
Lol!
My speculative envisioned conversation:
“Hello 911 – he … might… have a gun. I mean I didn’t see a gun – but it looks like he has ammo and I just wet myself. God help us – send someone to help us – preferably from the government – we just can’t handle this!”
Punk’s not dead, but Bostonians’ civil rights may be.
A most excellent & pithy comment, sir.
Punk’s not dead, but Bostonians’ civil rights are.
There, fixed it.
Fashion criminal.
Its official…I no longer recognize this country. I will mark this day, 2:15pm, July 15th, 2015. Where the fuck am I?
Indeed. 🙁 America… land of the socialist leeches, home of the easily offended.
I started keeping a list in 2010 of blue states/cities that I will not visit/spend money at, likely ever. Sadly the list keeps growing.
You must be hiding in a bunker somewhere for the past few decades.
I’m generally anti litigation, but in this case I’d make an exception.
At first I thought he was an extra from the latest Terminator film.
Seriously, I thought Punk died out because nobody bothered to be offended anymore. This reaction of the Bostonians might be like dumping gasoline on a fire.
And then the MBTA had to take the bus out of service in order to clean the seats.
I think I had that outfit back in’ 80.
I heard that 80’s fashions are coming back and I suppose it makes sense. back in the 90’s bell bottom pants and tie dye were popular. It seems like a 30 year cycle is the norm, but thank God that the 70’s either stayed in the 70’s or I was able to miss the resurgence.
There was a brief and largely uneventful resurgence in the early 00’s. That 70’s Show ring a bell?
I think this look is making a comeback. I was in Salt Lake City last week in the Fashion Mall. A late teen or twenty-something was wearing the exact same getup within the mall – fake bullet belt and all. Those Mormons are made of stronger stuff because no one there raised an eyebrow.
I still have a belt almost exactly like that one leftover from my punk days. I wonder how much it’ll be worth when they start banning them.
This would be the same metropolis that was touting itself as “Boston Strong”? How about, “Boston Pathetic.”
A little follow-up? What was he charged with? Has the man’s property been returned? Any statement from the cops regarding their error?
There is no protected right to be free from fear or offense. Especially when your feelings step on the rights of others. Citizens may not realize this but government employees damn sure should.
Kevin Young was charged with unlawful possession of ammunition, unlawfully carrying a dangerous weapon and disorderly conduct.
All the charges were dropped. The cops said nothing (what did you expect). The Boston PD’s attitude has always been “you can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride.”
There’s no mention of his property being returned and, frankly, nobody cares.
Kevin Young seems to be a member of a punk band. If so, I’d say that his street cred just improved by a factor of ten.
“Military grade ammunition”
What does that even mean? And how would someone, who becomes so panicked at the mere sight of fake ammunition, even know what “military grade ammunition” is? The most upsetting part of all of this is that it wasn’t just one panicked pearl clutching oxygen thief that called 911, it was multiple.
Wouldn’t “military grade” ammunition likely be of lower quality and lower lethality compared to “hunter grade” or “civilian grade” ammunition that could be assembled to match grade tolerances or contain modern expanding bullets? I suppose there might be limited cases where API would be more troublesome, but those are few and far between…
I’m trying to decide if Boston is filled with simpering ninnies or pearl-clutching pussies.
Probably both.
that was a man??
Well I hope those freaks from Boston stay in Boston. I’d hate to have to educate them here that this is an open carry state and that in all would be several very profitable law suits for me if they called the cops.
By freaks you mean the panic stricken psych jobs, not the dude with the belt, leather and studs. 🙂
YOU CANT BE TRUE PUNK IN THOSE SUNGLASSES!!!!
Hmmmmm. Makes me wonder what we PotG might do a out such a thing.
How about we make-up necklaces and charm bracelets featuring bullets and full cartridges. Drill a conspicuously large hole in the bullet or brass case through which to run the chain or loop to attach to the charm bracelet. It will be perfectly clear to the constabulary at first glance that the ordinance is not-live.
Now, what will the constabulary do? How much of their time will they want to devote to chasing down pearl-clutchers’ complaints? When will the pearl-clutchers realize that they are no longer taken seriously by 911 operators?
After thoroughly saturating a territory with bullet-bearers we can take the next step with OC.
Back in the day(long ago) I was “picked up” by the Chicago po-leece because I was wearing an old cop coat. I get this idiocy…Some azzwhole was offended. No I didn’t get my butt kicked but they illegally confiscated my coat. Boston strong-whata’ joke…
Punk was popular through the 80 too. It is funny to realize that 1/8 of my high school class would have been arrested if they somehow time traveled to Boston 2015 from the 1980’s. Interestingly, these nose ring early adopters now drive Prius’, worship the Al Gore Global Warming god, became PETA following vegetarians, and support any other cause their political handlers tell them to support including abolishing the 2nd and 1st amendments.
While normally I’d agree with you about the more recent crops of “punks”, there are more than a few older examples (myself included) who hold those Prius-driving, paleo/vegan/etc dieting, government-worshipping sellouts in the highest disregard. Back then we all held down jobs, a few became responsible parents fairly early, and most of us are proud 2nd Amendment supporters. There were a few bad apples from circle of friends that decided to swallow radical leftist ideology which was spoonfed them in college, but they are now by & large either in prison or deceased.
Although we didn’t know it then, our politics were much closer to libertarianism than liberalism or communism. We passed around well-worn copies of 1984, Brave New World, Rise & Fall of the 3rd Reich, and stuck to a very literal interpretation of the Bill of Rights. We all knew what happens government & PC-groupthink takes over, which was the basis for our rebellious attitude & fashions. Our liberal-controlled school absolutely despised us for it, and the local cops came down hard on us whenever they had an excuse; even though it was the bused-in ghetto spawn, trust-fund kids and atheletes who caused the most trouble & committed the most crime.
I guess it is weird for me to say this, but I think I would have been hanging around you guys if I went to your school. I am not sure I would have done the nose rings though. 🙂 In my school, I think it was a popular “bad guy” movement simply spawned by the need to rebel against their parents. After I left school and went into the military, the whole town slid hard down the progressive slippery slope including many of these self-identifying rebels. As you can imagine, I do not live there anymore.
Hey, you could still hang out with us. We never got into the weird piercing or tattoo trends that younger punks embraced, which allowed us in later years to blend in amongst the normals.
I was the only one from the crew which managed to escape our podunk mid-Michigan town for good, and I can thank the Army for that. I did meet a couple other undercover punks & rivetheads during my enlistment. It was kind of ironic that we ended up succesfully serving in the military, but that’s part of a whole other discussion.
This is a prime example of what Kim du Toit in his gun blogging days referred to as “pants-shitting-hysteria”, or PSH for short.
Ah yes. I sure do miss Kim Du Toit’s observations and unique (and often hilarious) way he worded things.
“The pussification of the Western male” is probably my favorite one he used. Apparently Bostonians define that phrase perfectly in 2015…
I thought of taking the trouble to comment on one of the various outlets mentioned in the article, then realized what a total waste of time and effort it would be. Suffice to say, some people on the bus – a LOT of people at that – need to be slapped in the face. Really, really hard. Over and over. With apologies to Ralph, Boston needs to just slide off into the ocean, same as California. It won’t be missed, as far as I’m concerned.
Tom
Not everyone up here in Boston is a left wing loon. There are plenty of us that hold the fort down.
With that said, I in no way defend the cops arresting this kid for his (bad) fashion. At the same time, everyone is especially on edge up here with the recent string of ISIS inspired plots that have been thwarted out of Boston recently. Just this week, they grabbed the estranged douchebag son of a respected BPD Captain in an elaborate and imminent plot to shoot and blow up a college cafeteria. While that causes people like us to load up and protect our own, others simply get panicked. It’s a much bigger problem that radical Islamic extremism gets treated way too kindly around the City than it is that people overreacted and called the cops on this kid. It is not easy to get your LTC up here, and a lot of people’s only defense is to call the cops when they feel like there is a threat. Especially when the government and media tells you to “stay alert and report suspicious” activity as the only way to combat threats.
I think the “military grade” comment was implying that it must be military ammo since it was for a belt-fed weapon.
Those belts were common wear for teens in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
69 cartridges they say? I do have a couple hundred links around here somewhere from delinking some radway green 7.62. Hmmm…
I used to have a a belt like that in the early 80s, but it was made of actual ammo links and fired 7,62 cases. Spike wrist bands and all. Ah, punk. Those were the days. Nowadays you have to be a white, Christian, heterosexual, male gun owner to offend people, so here I am. 😉
Now I’m curious as to how many of us on TTAG are “reformed” punks, hippies, and other fringe types. 😉
My belt is made of spent 7.62 cases and links too, which I riveted to an old UPS leather work-belt. My Dad was a full timer crew-chief on UH-1s in the ANG, and I had asked him to bring me back a bunch of spent cases & links from his M60 after a Guard weekend. He asked me “what for?”, and I remember that he gave me a funny look when I explained why; but Pops was cool enough that he humored me.
BITD, that was the only way to make accessories like that, you couldn’t just head down to the mall or go online and buy one like kids today do…. It actually took a bit of effort and creativity to put together a decent punk getup. My old leather jacket was always a work-in-progress. And in recent years I’ve seen “vintage” punk jackets for sale on eBay go for hundreds of dollars… which is totally cheating.
Social D (live at the Roxy) had something to say about this very thing. My first introduction to punk was in ’77. I lived outside of Brussels (yes, that Brussels) and went to an International School. My best friend Paul was from the UK, and we were hanging out in his room and he got me hooked on to the Sex Pistols… a record, on an actual Realistic, Radio Shack/Tandy brand record player.
My mom lost. her. mind. when I cut the sleeves off my levis jacket. good memories….
I had one in 80’s made from real non-disintegrating russian belt and military grade dummy 7.62×39 rounds. Once a cop became interested in it but after checking that the rounds weren’t live quickly lost his interest in me.
And that was in comunist Czechoslovakia.
Never been to Boston and never will. Is the area truly this ignorant, reactive and hysterical? Did they miss the boat related to anti-establishment attire? Blag Flag, Sex Pistols, did these mutton-heads miss recent history completely?
Does a murderer typically dress like this, have an exposed belt of ammo, no apparent firearm and politely pay his bus fare then quietly take a seat? Holy crap, these people are super duper weirdos!
“One if by land, two if by sea”… Now the people of Mass. would be cheering the Redcoats on
Actually, punk music and fashion were from the early-80s. Disco music and fashion were from the late-70s.
I lived through those times. After the mind-numbing boredom of disco music, and the crazy, polyester flashiness of disco fashion, the aimless rebellion of the punk years was a refreshing change.
“Hello, Boston 911? I’m reporting a man swinging a stick around and I’m scared that he’s going to hit someone with it. Another man just threw something at him! Now he’s running away and lots of people are screaming! OMG! Quick, send the police! I’m at 4 Yawkey Way…”
Part Deux…
“Hello, Boston PD? Quick, send the police! I’m on an MBTA bus and there’s a picture of a man holding a spear. … What? Well, isn’t it obvious? He could come to life, jump out of the picture and start skewering everyone. OK, the police are here….hey, wait a minute, they all have the same picture of the guy with the spear on their car doors and shoulder patches! OMG!”
In the 1770s, the shopkeepers, street sweepers and labourers of Boston went to make war on the greatest military the world had ever seen.
In 2015, this.
What are we become, who were once a great people?
Its just come full circle to a “Billy Idol” look-alike. 80s attire has come back. Remember punk rock?
“I wasn’t aware that fake bullets were illegal in Boston”
Amazingly, THEY ARE, depending on where in the continuum of “fake” they fall.
In Massachusetts, it is illegal to possess ammunition — or ANY COMPONENTS of ammunition — if you don’t have a state license to own a gun.
If a kid cuts across the local shooting range and picks up a spent bullet or an empty cartridge case, he’s a FELON (two years in prison). If a guy carries a novelty keychain with a cartridge fob that has a real bullet or case on it, he’s a FELON. See https://malegislature.gov/laws/generallaws/partiv/titlei/chapter269/section10 .
Boston Strong! Or something.
I believe it was LAX that went into lockdown when they found a single round of ammunition laying on the floor in the terminal. Panic knows no bounds.
Even Canada doesn’t freak out this bad. Seriously, some states have worse gun laws than Canada.
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