{"id":145,"date":"2012-04-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/ted-nugent-should-be-in-jail\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T20:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:16:07","slug":"ted-nugent-should-be-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/ted-nugent-should-be-in-jail\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Nugent Should Be In Jail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ted Nugent Obama Comments Draw Secret Service Scrutiny\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pEt7JaggLwU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ted Nugent<\/strong> should be arrested.<br \/>\nBy\u00a0<strong>LZ Granderson<\/strong>, CNN Contributor<\/p>\n<p>Not because he doesn\u2019t like Barack Obama but because he got up in front of a group of people and insinuated he would attempt to assassinate Obama if he\u2019s re-elected. Or let\u2019s put it this way: A man with a truckload of guns has threatened the life of our president while the country\u2019s at war.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nugent\u2019s words were:<\/strong> \u201cIf Barack Obama is elected, I\u2019ll either be dead or in jail this time next year,\u201d which sounds to me like he\u2019s open to directing his disapproval of Obama in a way that is violent and unlawful. When you see that statement next to <em>Ted Nugent<\/em> comparing Obama and his colleagues to coyotes that needed to be shot, as well as the need to \u201cride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November,\u201d I don\u2019t see how that rant cannot be looked upon as a threat on the president\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t care how you feel about Nugent\u2019s music or Obama\u2019s policies, it seems that if there were a First Amendment line to cross, that would be it. And yet, the reality is the Secret Service will spend a little time investigating Nugent, determine he\u2019s not a true threat, and move on. If the Supreme Court can rule in favor of an 18-year-old man who, in voicing his opposition to being drafted for the Vietnam War, said: \u201cIf they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is LBJ,\u201d then it\u2019s doubtful anything is going to happen to Nugent.<\/p>\n<div>At least anything involving jail time.<\/div>\n<p>People are still free to organize boycotts and express disapproval. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech but it cannot insulate folks against the social and cultural repercussions that come from saying something offensive.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Ted Nugent<\/span> should be in jail. But he\u2019s just a piece of low-hanging fruit. We already know he\u2019s a wild man who makes inflammatory remarks to stay relevant. We also know he\u2019s not the only media figure who shocks for a living.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The bigger question is why is it OK to say you\u2019re going to kill the president, and by OK, I mean legal?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a name=\"em2\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a name=\"em3\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>True, because President Obama is black he has attracted a unique breed of critics, such as Walter Bagdasarian,<\/div>\n<div>who in 2008 was arrested but later set free after posting\u00a0\u201dRe: Obama fk the n****r, he will a .50 cal in the head soon\u201d on a Yahoo message board. He also posted \u201cShoot the n*g.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Obama is hardly the only president to have a U.S. citizen publicly threaten his life. And yet, like Bagdasarian, the people issuing the threats are protected under a law that yanks the teeth out of another law,\u00a0one that makes it a felony to threaten a president or major presidential candidate\u00a0with death or bodily harm. In order to get a jail sentence to stick, prosecutors must prove the individual has made plans to carry out such a threat. So even though law enforcement found a .50 caliber muzzle-loading rifle in Bagdasarian\u2019s home \u2014 the kind of bullet he said would soon be in Obama\u2019s head \u2014 that wasn\u2019t enough to keep him in jail.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know about you, but I find that to be a bit unsettling, especially nowadays, when we have almost as many guns in the U.S. as we do people \u2014 the highest rate of any country in the world of civilian gun ownership. Forty-nine states allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons outside of their home for protection, including in some cases, bars. Who needs a plan when you can be ticked off, get liquored up and then go attend a rally?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not anti-gun.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m pro- America.<\/p>\n<p>Allowing people to threaten the life of a president, particularly during time of war, is not protecting free speech as much as it is dangerously close to treason as it is defined in Article III of the Constitution. We have an agreed-upon system to replace elected officials we don\u2019t like. It\u2019s called democracy. If people don\u2019t like the president, they can say that. They can vote against them. They can run. They can leave. But they shouldn\u2019t be allowed to go on the Internet or radio and threaten his or her life. I felt that way about George W. Bush, I feel that way about President Obama, and I will feel that way if Mitt Romney gets elected.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because this conversation isn\u2019t about them or the parties they represent. It\u2019s about maintaining some level of respect for the office. How can we begin to talk seriously about \u201crestoring America\u201d\u2013 whatever that means \u2014 when we openly threaten the life of our chief ambassador?<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy were all assassinated. Six U.S. presidents survived assassination attempts.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not surprised to hear such comments from Nugent. But I am surprised that in a country with 106 million handguns, 105 million rifles, 83 million shotguns and four assassinated presidents, we don\u2019t take such talk more seriously.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Original Article Here:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2012\/04\/18\/opinion\/granderson-nugent\/index.html\">http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2012\/04\/18\/opinion\/granderson-nugent\/index.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ted Nugent should be arrested. By\u00a0LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor Not because he doesn\u2019t like Barack Obama but because he got up in front of a group of people and insinuated he would attempt to assassinate Obama if he\u2019s re-elected. Or let\u2019s put it this way: A man with a truckload of guns has threatened the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1345,"featured_media":147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[637,638,639,640],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-off-the-wall","tag-ted-nugent-obama","tag-ted-nugent-should-be-in-jail","tag-ted-nugent-threatens-obama","tag-ted-nugent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/elite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}