Today, Seattle: Tomorrow, Tampa. Or, It’s Not Registered Gun Owners Mayor Buckhorn Should be Complaining About.

While the Tampa City Council and camera-hungry Mayor Bob Buckhorn eagerly grandstand (with the aid of the MSM, of course) about the non-issue of legally registered gun-owners having their weapons with them during the Republican National Convention, take a good look at the types of problems they’re refusing to confront: violent Occupy/black bloc/anarchist thugs destroying businesses in Seattle Tuesday — and sure to be on their way to Tampa for the Republican Convention in August:

Watch the video here.  It’s disturbing. (someday, I’ll learn to imbed YouTube videos as well as the average 8-year old): wYT82Fec3cQ

Where, you might ask, are the Seattle police?  Well, spineless Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn probably reined them in, afraid that any response to these destructive thugs would turn into accusations of “police brutality” and the inevitable lawsuits.  At 2:23 in the video, the police show up . . . on bicycles.  How would you like that to be your son or daughter, wading into a hostile, club-wielding mob on a bicycle because the mayor wants to placate . . . the hostile, club-wielding mob?

Seattle Mayor McGinn.  Don’t bother shaving or anything, dude.

So businesspeople trying to make a living in Seattle are left to the mercy of the mob while the Mayor placates the looters.  Note the number of businesses that already have plexiglass or covered windows because of previous riots.  Taxpayers who pay extra to have storefronts in downtown Seattle?  Screw ’em.  Elected officials there have decided it’s worth risking the lives of their police and the safety of their citizens and the profitability of their business class — all to score brownie points with a bunch of inarticulate, screaming animals who will not only not be placated, but will be empowered by the Mayor’s impotent “gesture.”

Of course, Mayor McGinn gets a taxpayer-funded security detail.  The employees at that Niketown store being mobbed by thugs?  Not so much.  And when the store closes because its evil corporate overlords decide that it’s just not worth doing business in a place where elected officials privilege thugs over decent, ordinary citizens and businesspeople, those employees won’t have jobs, either.

I have a lot of faith in the Tampa and Hillsborough County police forces, and in the Chief of Police and the Sheriff.  But Mayor Buckhorn and some members of the Tampa City Council are beclowning themselves — on our dime — with hysteria over registered guns and other non-issues, while pandering to the wishes of the ACLU, which apparently has a direct line to the Mayor that ordinary, taxpaying citizens lack:

City officials met last week with the American Civil Liberties Union about “an exhaustive list of things” the ACLU thinks impinge on protesters’ First Amendment rights, said Joyce Hamilton Henry, director of the ACLU’s Tampa office. “The city was very receptive,” Hamilton Henry said.

How nice.  Now it’s time for Mayor Buckhorn to stop playing games and get serious.

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn.  On a Segway.  What is it with Mayors and Segways?

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Because, these people . . .

. . . are coming to Tampa for the Convention.  And if I owned a business in the protest zone and had to shut down for a week, or shell out money for new windows, or security guards, or worry about my employees getting to and from their cars — I’d be mightily pissed off watching Mayor  Buckhorn preen for the national press over his registered-guns hobbyhorse.  I’m outside the city limits, and believe me, Bob, such feelings — and business interests — don’t stop at the train tracks.

Speaking of pissed, here’s the reason they’re banning squirt-guns at the convention:

Bottles of Human Waste for NATO Protesters to Throw on Chicago Cops

From Second City Cop, a blog out of Chicago:

This is part or the whole of an extensive stash of bottles recovered in the 010th District the other day. All filled with human waste and no doubt whatever extra fecal matter the ne’er-do-wells were able to pick up on the parkways. Counts range from 100 to 500 bottles recovered depending on the rumor you believe.  We’re sure this isn’t the only stash floating around out there. How about the Department try something novel and get the media to cover what the protestors and anarchists are planning and maybe get the public overwhelmingly on our side?

Good question, as usual, from SCC.  Someone should ask Tampa Mayor Buckhorn the same.  He could have gotten behind his city’s police officers, and gotten out in front of this, and explained the squirt-gun ban to the public, but that might have cut into his gold-plated national media tantrum.  So he said this, instead, and his pals at the Tampa Times let him get away with it.  Without, like, asking any hard questions:

“The absurdity of banning squirt guns but not being able to do anything about real guns is patently obvious,” Buckhorn said.

In other words, why behave responsibly when you can glom a few moments scoring political points on the national news — after all, what’s a few cops being doused with urine and feces (and urine mixed with bleach, and battery acid, and other silly protester stuff?)

By the way, the allegedly peaceful Tampa Coalition to March on the RNC has already issued a declaration that they stand by “diversity of tactics.”  This means, specifically, that they are rolling out the welcome mat for black bloc/anarchist and other violent protest.

So, did the mayor ask any questions about this the last time he chummily confabbed with the protesters’ lawyers at the ACLU?  

Did anyone in the media bother to ask him why not?  

Nope.  They were too busy featuring giggly thingies like this, who think it’s hilarious to mock security efforts designed to keep all of us safe — conventioneers, protesters, business owners, but most especially the police, who will be the ones dealing with the thugs — that is, when they aren’t busy arresting this woman again, when she probably ought to be at her desk at work — working for the taxpayers who employ her, that is . . .

Arrested Occupy Protester, AFSCME Union Rep, Public Employee: Your Tax Dollars at Work

So long as Mayor Buckhorn and his echo chamber at the Tampa Bay (formerly St. Pete) Times keep attacking law-abiding gun owners instead of the anarchists and Food-not-Bombs lunatics and their black bloc “diversity of tactics” peers, our brave cops can expect to be soaked with human waste; business owners can expect to be cleaning up broken glass and laying off workers, and the rest of us can expect to be footing the bill for the mayor’s pre-emptive lack of spine.  As a taxpayer, I keep expecting something something different.  But I know that’s just a personality flaw.