Things That Make You Go 'Hmmm...'

We talked yesterday about that Change.org petition demanding open carry at the Republican convention. I still maintain it is a product of "progressives," designed to exploit venue realities, to embarrass, and to engage in some good old-fashioned Alinsky Rule 5 ridicule.

First, we don't know who is behind it -- the petition originator lists himself as "NA" and does not share his identity with anyone he doesn't know. My hometown paper identifies the sponsor  as "Americans for Responsible Open Carry," a group I've never heard of that doesn't appear to have any other sort of web presence. In any case, according to Fox News, the Akron Beacon-Journal is the go-to source for the name, so I asked reporter Doug Livingston how he ferreted it out. He replied that the name has apparently been changed. Unfortunately, a petition url cache search does not offer independent corroboration to further help us determine who is really behind this.

[UPDATE: "Hyperationlist" claims credit while maintaining trolling anonymity.]

Another reason to have doubt: The petition uses the phony, demonizing term "assault weapons" without quotation marks -- something right out of the gun-grabber lexicon, and something no experienced gun rights advocate would do.

There's something else we've come to expect: In all the news stories about this petition, there's no shortage of comments hoping for violence and death as "just deserts" for anyone daring to support the right to keep and bear arms. This report also has its share. And one guy stands out.

Meet Jeffrey Pilz. I can't tell you much about him, because he only shares his Facebook details with "friends," but he certainly has an interesting buildup of hostility eating at him, as evidenced by two separate comments:

and

Curious thing about Jeffrey. One thing we can tell from his Facebook page is he has a friend from Mason City, IA. That in itself would be totally insignificant, except when considered with one other factor, it rises to the level of interesting coincidence, and possibly a lot more.

That's because we have another story out of Mason City, IA, featuring one Jeffrey Pilz, an academic of sorts who has been arrested twice -- once for harassment related to threatening messages, unwanted contact and stalking, and the second time for violation of a no contact order to pressure his target into dropping charges. He was jailed after a plea deal that included a mandatory mental health evaluation. It was a misdemeanor charge, but restraining and mental eval orders generally have an effect on legal gun possession, at least for a prescribed period.

The faces in the two photos certainly resemble each other. The Pictriev similarity meter agrees:

[Click to enlarge]

What are the odds?  But either way, the bloodthirsty comments from the first "Jeffrey Pilz" sure do indicate some anger management issues, like his visceral hatred for others is actually a projection, and like he's a total headcase loser ready to snap.  If these two photos are of the same guy, the people responsible for evaluating his "progress" (maybe Magistrate Ronald J. Wagenaar?)  ought to know how he's "reformed," because all too often we’ve seen tragedies that could have been prevented if warning signs hadn’t been ignored.

Isn't that something  we're told is "common sense gun control"?