Here is an update on the general store in Standish Maine that posted the sign announcing an “Osama Obama Shotgun Pool.” The sign offered a $1 buy-in and stated, ”Let’s hope someone wins.”
The owner of the Oak Hill General Store, Steve Collins, has been away last week on a hunting trip. Coincidentally, his hunting trip coincided as the story broke the national news. Locals do say it is not unusual for him to close down for a hunting or fishing trip. Still, it sounds like a good excuse to me.
The local Sheriff’s Department and U.S. Secret Service investigated, but no charges will be filed.
”It doesn’t appear that it was constituting a criminal threat or a terrorizing incident,” Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion said. That is probably best, as there is no crime against bad taste and stupidity.
Collins never admitted to the sign to Sheriff’s deputies, but Dion said the circumstances and Collins’ body language made it relatively easy to draw a conclusion. Dion said someone only needed “to connect a few dots.”
The incident has riled up locals and people throughout the state. As the Portland Press Herald reported:
State lawmakers from the Standish area plan to introduce a legislative resolution condemning it and other post-election incidents around the state. The Standish Town Council, faced with angry e-mails from around the country, passed a resolution Thursday calling the alleged activity at the store reprehensible. And Friday evening, Gov. John Baldacci and other state and local leaders addressed the incident at an anti-hate rally at the University of Southern Maine campus in Portland.
Even the Standish Town Council took action. It held a special meeting and issued a resolution calling the sign and betting pool “reprehensible” and condemned “any such alleged activity calling for violence against any individual no matter their position, race or ethnicity.”
Collins just might want to extend his hunting trip a bit longer. It is a good bet that some people are not going down to the Oak Hills General Store to get a gallon of milk or loaf of bread for a while.
Mr. Church, you sound apologetic in tone for the sign maker, why is that?
If I was to have made a shotgun bet sign with “Let’s hope someone wins” written on it for President Reagan would you have been so apologetic and understanding, so willing to chalk it up as just “bad taste and stupidity?”
See, your suggestion that it’s only bad taste and stupidity leaves the option that it wasn’t wrong, per se. As adults, which I will afford you the presumption of being, we all know “taste” is objective, it’s a matter of opinion. Making an assassination pool and stating you hope the president is assassinated, because THAT’S exactly what was done, is not “bad taste,” it’s WRONG. When you suggest it’s stupidity as well, you seem to be addressing the fact that the sign writer was stupid, but are you suggesting it was stupid to make the sign, or stupid that the sign maker would hope that it was fulfilled? You don’t clarify, amateurism or myopic ignorance on your part I would only gather.
In the end, your boy Mr. Collins was more than stupid and lacking good taste, as you suggest, instead, he was racist, ignorant, pathetic, a liar, childish, a fool, and close to being a criminal if not one. Mr. Church, I would rethink who my friends were if I were you.
Apologetic?
I can only suggest you look at the previous article I wrote on this subject and others ones with threatening overtones against Presient-elect Obama. Anyone who thinks I can call someone stupid and thinks that I am somehow supporting that person is really missing the point.
I did a follow-up on this story because the state and towns people have rightly expressed their indignation over Collins’ act.
You are fairly correct that Collins acted as a “racist, ignorant, pathetic, a liar, childish, a fool.” I fail to see where your description and mine of “bad taste” and “stupid” are that different.
Crime? No, I can’t go that far whether against Obama or Bush.
There’s something called the First Amendment and it does protect bad taste and stupidity.
Also, if you really believe in something, why hide behind a fake email as you have done? That’s almost as bad as Collins who tried to disown his sign after it started to get bad publicity.