A crazed man screamed anti-Trump and Nazi slogans in a crowded theater in Baltimore, Maryland. Then, the crowd started to panic and called the police as they realized what was happening in the balcony.
The Baltimore Sun reports that a performance of Fiddler on the Roof was interrupted Wednesday night when a man in the balcony began shouting. Anthony M. Derlunas, 58, terrified theatergoers when he yelled “Heil Hitler, Heil Trump” and flashed a Nazi salute.
Naturally, this outburst scared the hell out of the other patrons, causing many to run for the exits.
Audience member Rich Scherr said the outburst, which happened during intermission, sparked fears of a shooting like the one in a Pittsburgh synagogue last month that killed 11 people.
“People started running. I’ll be honest, I was waiting to hear a gunshot. I thought, ‘Here we go,’” said Scherr.
Samit Verma was seated in the balcony near Derlunas and noted, “The people around me appeared to be quite shaken by the incident. There were some people in tears.”
Sick, sad world. A man stands at intermission of tonight’s performance of Fiddler in Baltimore and yells, “Heil Hitler,” along with pro-Trump references. pic.twitter.com/slDcPwF7re
— Rich Scherr (@writerguyRich) November 15, 2018
Ushers rushed over to Derlunas and escorted him from the theater. The police were called and the man explained to officers that he “had been drinking heavily throughout the night.” Who gets excessively drunk to see a performance of Fiddler on the Roof?
While most liberals reacted to this incident as an anti-Semitic hate crime type of thing, here’s the reality of the situation:
According to the report, Derlunas said that the final scene of the play before intermission had reminded him of his hatred for the president, which is why he shouted. He was confused when people around him became angry. The officer deduced “that his intention was to express his dislike for President Donald Trump.”
Though Derlunas incited panic with words and actions designed to intimidate and offend, he was not arrested. Police gave him a “stop ticket” which is the least severe measure they can take when responding to a complaint. A stop ticket carries no fines or penalties and requires no follow-up action by the recipient. This lunatic got less than a slap on the wrist for his actions.
“As reprehensible as those words are, they are considered protected free speech because nobody was directly threatened,” police spokesman Matt Jablow.
Which brings us back to the liberal gun control argument. According to the left, there are restrictions on 1st Amendment free speech, which justifies restrictions on the 2nd Amendment right of gun ownership. The left often paraphrases an opinion by SCOTUS Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, saying that you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater.
In fact here’s House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi taking that paraphrasing to weird new places:
“Because in the Constitution does not say that a person can yell wolf in a crowded theater. If you are endangering people than you don’t have a Constitutional right to do that,” said Pelosi.
Yeah, she really said “wolf,” but that doesn’t change the argument. If gun control is justified by restrictions on free speech, using liberal’s logic against them, if no such restrictions on speech exist there can also be no restrictions on gun ownership.
A man in Baltimore had the free speech rights to scream anti-Trump and anti-Semitic things in a theater so, therefore, Maryland’s strict gun control laws are unconstitutional.
This would be true if liberals weren’t such flaming hypocrites and BS artists. The truth is, this man had a right to yell these things because it was directed against President Trump. If he had yelled pro-Trump slogans, he would have been arrested and charged with a hate crime.
