The quarterly WHTM Pledge Drive continues! If you appreciate this blog, and can afford it, please click the “donate” button below. Thanks!
Earlier today, a Muslim man was reportedly shot and stabbed by three masked men outside a mosque in Houston, Texas. Yesterday, another Muslim man was beaten outside a mosque in Orlando, Florida by a man who reportedly told him that “you Muslims need to get back to your country.”
So I suppose that we should be grateful that Men’s Rights Activist Jack Barnes hasn’t, as far as I know, shot or otherwise physically harmed any Muslim Americans. So far, at least, he has confined himself to threatening them with murder on Twitter.
Today, Barnes posted a picture of himself brandishing a gun, alongside a threatening message aimed at Muslims, first on Imgur (archived here), and then on Twitter (archived here; screenshots of both here).
Barnes, a regular contributor to A Voice for Men, didn’t just retweet or recaption some tacky meme; he photographed himself brandishing a real handgun, and did his best to spread the picture and its threatening caption as far as he could online, tweeting the picture directly to Milo Yiannopoulos’ Twitter account in hopes that Milo would share it with his alleged 320,000 followers.
Seven hours after posting the photo on Twitter, Barnes declared that despite all appearances to the contrary he didn’t mean all Muslims. “Lol. No,” he Tweeted. “Just the terrorists.”
“Allahu Akbar” is not, of course, a phrase used only by terrorists. As Wikipedia notes, the phrase,
usually translated as “God is great”, “God is [the] greatest”, or “God is greater” … is a common Islamic Arabic expression, used in various contexts by Muslims; in formal prayer, in the call for prayer … as an informal expression of faith, in times of distress, or to express resolute determination.
This is hardly the first time Barnes has threatened people online. Feminists “need to learn to fear retribution from us,” Barnes wrote in an AVFM post this January, telling his readers that
we have our hands on the throat of feminism. This isn’t the time to ease up. This is the time to squeeze harder.
Despite the violent language, Barnes insisted that he wasn’t threatening to physically harm feminists, merely threatening to deploy “online tools … to strike fear in [their] hearts.”
Last November, Barnes decided to blame me after someone who was very definitely not me, and whose identity neither Barnes nor I even know, posted Barnes’ address on Twitter. He threatened to show up at my door for “a face to face in person discussion,” adding that
I don’t know of any parent that would blame me for stomping a mud hole in your f*cking ass and walking that motherf*cker dry for what you have done!
Barnes has made clear that he intends his “activism,” if that’s what you want to call it, to intimidate those he disagrees with into silence.
Barnes doesn’t always remember to put “harass” in quotes, as in this now deleted Tweet (archived here).
After an angry misogynist opened fire at a Louisiana theater last summer, killing two women and injuring nearly a dozen other moviegoers, Barnes offered this chilling assessment of the event (archived here):
https://twitter.com/Jackbarnesmra/status/626838268173283328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I think it’s fair to say that these all count as “warning signs.” Of what, I shudder to think.
H/T — Thanks to @TakedownMRAs on Twitter, a diligent tracker of Barnes’ noxious activities on Twitter who drew my attention to Barnes’ Tweet today.
And yet, Jack Barnes isn’t on a fucking watchlist, nor will he ever be classified as a terrorist. Because he’s not Muslim and/or brown-skinned.
Hey, Jack? If you hate terrorists so much, to the point where you just want to shoot them, why are you using their tactics to do the same thing they want to do?
Or does it “not count” when you intimidate, harass and threaten people you don’t like?
One day, he’s going to find himself arrested for a real crime. Where I come from, threatening murder IS a crime in itself. Especially if there’s racial, religious or sexual prejudice behind it, and he’s obviously guilty of all three.
Don’t ever come to Canada, Jack. We don’t want your kind here.
What the hell do they think “Allahu Akbar” means?
I remember saying and singing “God is Great” about a hundred different ways when I was a kid.
But I suppose I was worshiping the right God, and I was doing it in English.
Damn, he is violent.
It’s hard to take this dipshit seriously when he looks like a dimestore Walter Sobchak with compensation issues.
Could we all just tweet ‘Allahu Akbar’ at him like that annoying kid at recess who kept repeating whatever it was you wanted them to stop saying?
Why yes, I am almost thirty, why do you ask?
OK… I’m a bit concerned here:
“another Muslim man was beaten outside a mosque in Orlando, Florida by a man who reportedly told him that “you Muslims need to get back to your country.”
but neither the victim nor the sheriffs office made any statements to that effect.
“Interviews by the deputies and supervisors on scene and a written witness statement completed by the victim do not indicate any racially-motivated comments were made by the suspect prior to, during or after the incident,”
in fact, the Sheriff’s office was decrying an outside group, CAIR, from spreading that statement.
so… while it might indeed HAVE been racially or religiously motivated, spreading the 3rd hand claims of an organization that actually was not there and gave no legal statement is not going to help.
sticking to official statements until such time as there is more information is the better way to go.
Another day and another asshole wants to continue the cycle of violence. You’re playing right into the ISIS narrative that the West hates Muslims, Jackie-Boy. Your stupid, shallow meme and violent hatred is only hurting the United States, Jackie-Boy.
I’ve observed Jack quite a bit over the last few months how is his twitter account not banned yet? Does he have anything better to do then to threaten people online all day? I’ve never seen this guy tweet about anything else other then how evil women are. Dude get a hobby just sayin…..
I hope he’s on some sort of watch list, because this is exactly the sort of person who shoots up schools and churches.
If this isn’t hate speech, I don’t know what is. Even the focus of the picture seems designed to be threatening – besides the obvious thing of pointing a gun at the viewer’s face, the perspective is also designed to make him look like he’s looming over someone.
And, yeah, Mr. Barnes, threatening people with death and trying to get attention with the said threats is totally an ANTI-terrorist thing to do. Keep on telling yourself that.
Ichthyic, someone from a group that works closely with CAIR was literally with the victim when he was attacked.
And there are some reasons to be skeptical of the police in this instance:
Ruiz told Thinkprogress several days ago that the mosque has faced harassment and threats since the Pulse shootings:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/07/01/3794953/florida-mosque-protection/
It’s true we don’t know for sure what happened — that’s why I said “reportedly” — but I can’t say I really trust preliminary statements from a police department that doesn’t seem to take the safety of Muslims very seriously.
@Huggbees
You or I collect stamps, play vidya, bike, etc. He threatens people online. This is his hobby
Is it wrong that I hope he accidentally shoots himself right in the camera?
I really hope that Jack took that picture with an unmanned camera, maybe on a timer, because the thought of a photographer being behind that camera gives me the willies. I certainly wouldn’t trust him to have the gun not loaded and the safety on, not for a second.
They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.
You can say “Allah ho akbar” when, after a season of struggling with squash bugs and vines that produce only male flowers, you finally get that big, perfect pepo, be it watermelon, canteloupe, calabaza, or cushaw.
Meanwhile, I expect we will, sooner or later, see this man unpleasantly in the news.
Report, report, report this guy. I just did.
He doesn’t realize that a secure person feels no need to threaten others. He doesn’t know that he reveals his deep fears every time he posts a threatening message or photo.
He’s not aware that this sort of picture tells the world that Jack Barnes was a victim as a child.
Also (perhaps) unrealized: the fact that this will not end well.
Coming into this 4th of July, I have seen the comment floating around “Happy Day where people you wouldn’t trust with a glow stick are gonna be firing off explosives.”
I would not trust Barnes with a glowstick. Or a capgun. He’s got shitty trigger discipline. Hopefully the worst that ever happens is he shoots his damn camera. But here’s agreeing with Catalpa so hard: I really, really want that to be an automatic or timed shot, because the thought of a live photographer for that shot is scarily irresponsible.
Wow, he really does have a gun. i had almost hoped he was bluffing about that. What a frightening and repulsive individual.
Because slightly inebriated rambling…
Well at least the damn gun is being aimed at the ground (or appears to be) and he’s not waving it around or in the air…it seems like every year on the 4th more or less around where I live there’s some idiot firing a gun in the air, or drunkenly waving a gun around only to shoot themselves in the foot/thigh/crotchtal region, sometimes losing their grip and dropping it on the ground which of course discharges a round willy nilly. Why can’t they just stuff lit fireworks into their pants while their friends laugh and get cell phone video for posting on youtube (after some stop-drop-and-scooching-across the ground to put the fire out, and someone gets a bucket of water for the idiot of course) like the dude-bros, at least that way drops the risk of innocent bystanders being shot and/or killed due to simple proximity.
Seriously, what is the deal with guys putting exploding fireworks near their ‘junk’? They shouldn’t have a gun at all EVER if posing and dumbass drunken waving a loaded weapon around sounds like a great thing to be doing. No need for additional background checks, just make the #1 question one has to answer before the actual checking begins an illustrated multiple choice one, showing pictures of drunken idiots posing with firearms or waving them
a.) totally funny
b.) done this already might do again
c.) has a friend who shot his d!ck off in which case WTF
d.) any or all of the above and other answers that any reasonable person would deem acceptable for NEVER letting you get your hands on anything other than a neon colored plastic water gun *if that*.
Can’t tell what kind of gun it is, but if it’s a revolver it doesn’t have a manual safety. Nor do a lot of modern semiautomatic pistols.
This is so frightening. I desperately hope he doesn’t escalate to physical violence.
Aaaand I just found a whole treasure trove of videos of macho idiots doing just that:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=99c_1461877757
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOP7a6Qfkb0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w5t6hktyqI
That bouncing dog is a nice touch.
Funny how trying to prove that their dick is the biggest so often results in loss (or near-loss) of said appendage…
I take the danger he poses seriously. On the other hand, it’s hard to take you seriously when you think small dick = a delightful insult.
Senpaiiii!