“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” It’s an old adage from days past that has often been used to remind us not to give up, that if something is hard or doesn’t work out the way we had hoped, it’s not the end of the world. Instead, it offers us the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and take another shot at whatever we are trying to accomplish.
And apparently, it’s advice those looking to see right-wing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene go down in flames have taken to heart.
Thursday was the second day in a row that the congresswoman was “swatted.”
If you’ve never heard that term before, it’s essentially a prank call to law enforcement, but it’s one in which serious danger or even death can occur all too quickly.
You see, instead of just calling and hanging up as the usual prank calls go, this one involves someone calling and faking a crime or potential danger – say an active shooter, for example. An address or name of the suspect is then requested and even given. The only thing is that those unlucky individuals who happen to be present at the address provided have no idea that police or a ‘SWAT’ team is about to descend on them, guns drawn and ready for a fight.
As you can imagine, should the unsuspecting homeowners, business workers, etc., react poorly or show any action perceived as threatening, police could very well open fire in defense.
This style of ‘prank’ was used in 2017 when police showed up at a home expecting to find an active shooter in Wichita, Kansas. An innocent man was shot and killed by police after unintentionally provoking the responding law enforcement. In reality, two video gamers thought it would be funny to have the cops interrupt and scare one of their rival players.
Unfortunately, things went very wrong.
And it could have gone very wrong either night that MTG’s home was swatted.
The first incident occurred on Wednesday when Rome, Georgia, police were alerted by claims that a man had been shot multiple times in a bathtub at the Greene residence at 1 a.m.
Police arrived to find the Greene family safe and sound in their beds. Shortly afterward, police received a second call from the same suspect, who admitted that they were simply unhappy with Greene’s stance on transgender rights for youth and so were trying to ‘swat’ her, according to the police report.
Luckily, no one was hurt or in any real danger.
On Thursday, an all too similar situation took place. Again, police were notified that an active shooter was at the Greene residence. This time, it was supposedly a transgender man who had gone off on his family and shot them all. Now, he was threatening to shoot himself and anyone who might stand in his way, the police report noted.
And so officers again traveled to the Greene home only to be met again by MTG at the front door, who assured them that no such crime or atrocity had occurred. In a press release, the police department noted that they “confirmed this was a second false report.”
Again, thankfully, no one was injured or came to harm.
This comes one week after Greene introduced a bill onto the House floor that proposes that any and all gender-affirming care be denied to minors. Naturally, no small number of individuals within and in support of the transgender community is not in favor of the proposed legislation.
But to use that as motivation to ‘swat’ someone?
As I have written before, MTG isn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea. Much like the political left’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman congresswoman is prone to bouts of drama and is quite opinionated. As such, she’s nearly as controversial and hated as AOC is, just on the other end of the political spectrum, obviously.
But that doesn’t give anyone the right to take action against her in this way, especially since this particular prank could lead to “death by cop” or serious injury. Perhaps that was the plan all along, and since the first attempt didn’t succeed, these deranged individuals tried, tried again… only to fail again.
