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In case you were ever wondering who is still out there using Craigslist now that missed connections aren’t really a thing anymore — apart from landlords, those posting scammy-looking all caps job listings, and maybe people trying to get rid of a couch — the answer is, unfortunately, “guys from Texas looking to murder Georgia election officials.”
Chad Christopher Stark, 55, of Leander, Texas, pleaded guilty this week to threatening several public officials in Georgia on Craigslist, where he offered $10,000 to “Georgia Patriots” willing to dress up in camo and go murder them, for America.
According to the DOJ, the listing read (in part):
Georgia Patriots it’s time to kill [Official A] the Chinese agent – $10,000.
It’s time to invoke our Second Amendment right it’s time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges. It’s our duty as American Patriots to put an end to the lives of these traitors and take back our country by force. . . . If we want our country back we have to exterminate these people. One good loyal Patriot deer hunter in camo and a rifle can send a very clear message to these corrupt governors.. milita up Georgia it’s time to spill blood…. we need to pay a visit to [Official C] and her family as well and put a bullet her behind the ears. Remember one thing local law enforcement the key word being local….. we will find you oathbreakers and we’re going to pay your family to visit your mom your dad your brothers and sisters your children your wife… we’re going to make examples of traitors to our country… death to you and all you communist friends.
The DOJ did not say what section the posting was found in, though I would assume “etc./misc.”
“Today’s guilty plea plainly shows that anyone who threatens election officials online will be investigated by the FBI and held accountable for their words,” said Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, according to the DOJ. “We must take calls to violence seriously, whatever their form, especially when they have the potential to result in physical harm and undermine the integrity of U.S. elections.”
Stark faces up to two years in prison, where he will almost definitely not get the psychological help he so clearly needs, because we live in the United States, where giving obviously deeply disturbed people psychological help instead of just tossing them in prison and forgetting about them is being “soft on crime.”
Frankly, those who really deserve the blame in these cases are the gun lobbyists and pundits and politicians who go around talking about how the Second Amendment exists (and AR-15s must be accessible) so that people like Chad Christopher Stark can more easily kill those they believe are doing tyranny to them (and the rest of us, probably). The ones telling people like Stark that there is some need to “take back their country,” the ones who tell them that the election was stolen from them, are to blame as well. When they’re saying this as often as they are, we can hardly be surprised that there are people out there who take them seriously.
