Pokemon Competitors Arrested for Threatening Gun Violence at Worlds

smashandslash2

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Man, those dudes were askin' for it if you ask me. That is an incredibly stupid, idiotic (don't forget %1,000,000 against the spirit of the game) thing to do. Imagine if they had shot, say, the President & CEO of Pokemon...

*shudders hugely*

Super glad they were caught.
 

TheReasonsImBroke

Brokette
Member
Good on the players who reported the incident regardless of whether or not it was intended to follow with a malicious act. Warning signals like that should not go unchecked. Huge thanks to the men and women from the Boston Police Department and to the show runners at Worlds for letting players feel safe at the event.
 

Credits

Thundurus from Downundurus
Member
Personally I dont care if your against guns or an activist for them. What it plainly comes down to is no one "needs" to bring these kinds of weapons and this amount of ammunition to a card game period! If you want to exercise your 2nd ammendment, fine! If you want to protect yourself, same! But to this level is a recipe for disaster. I went with my partner and 8yo kid. The last thing I want is to be experiencing what has become far to common in this country and im not down for my kid having to live the rest of her life with a mental relapse of another columbine/sandy hook/aurora/etc/etc/etc situation because some idiots didnt win a card game. Unfortunately they wont be made an example of because the system of liberty here sucks (another story altogether) and it will happen again somewhere, sometime because of the massively broken society we live in. But who am I to say, Im just another dumbass chowin down bananas. God forbid any individual use common sense.
 

Alexander Degtyarev

Retro TCG Player
Member
Well, that makes sense. Like I said, I don't hate guns. I just think both sides can get pretty crazy at times and yes, I would agree that some of the pro-gunners do more damage to not only the gun culture, but the images of gun owners themselves. I feel that many gun owners are respectable, law-biding citizens and not thugs or lunatics who want to shoot up everything.
I can do nothing but agree with every point you make there. Sometimes people just get a little bit too worked up which defeats their own purpose.

Personally I dont care if your against guns or an activist for them. What it plainly comes down to is no one "needs" to bring these kinds of weapons and this amount of ammunition to a card game period! If you want to exercise your 2nd ammendment, fine! If you want to protect yourself, same! But to this level is a recipe for disaster. I went with my partner and 8yo kid. The last thing I want is to be experiencing what has become far to common in this country and im not down for my kid having to live the rest of her life with a mental relapse of another columbine/sandy hook/aurora/etc/etc/etc situation because some idiots didnt win a card game. Unfortunately they wont be made an example of because the system of liberty here sucks (another story altogether) and it will happen again somewhere, sometime because of the massively broken society we live in. But who am I to say, Im just another dumbass chowin down bananas. God forbid any individual use common sense.
Calm down bruh, nobody was going to shoot up the place. It was a joke. A stupendously dumb joke, but a joke nonetheless. They walked into the venue unarmed. You don't want to be that one guy that calls for punishment 10x worse than the deed. You have every right to your emotions on the matter but let's be fair at the same time.
 

Otaku

The wise fool?
Member
We've all heard the expression "When you assume, you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'." I have no similar clever wordplay to drive home a similar point, but when we make assumptions about anything not in evidence, we can make a monster out of a fool... including ourselves.

@Credits
What all do you know? I mean really know? Lots of guys I know buy ammo in bulk because its less expensive that way. For those that enjoy shooting (and where local regulations permit) their car trunk is where they end up keeping a decent chunk of it, let alone should they find a good deal while traveling and decide to pounce on it.

Is that what happened here? Doubt it. The thing is I know I shouldn't assume that it isn't. You know how much of the Facebook discussion I've seen? Just that little snippet here on PokéBeach. Not sure about the other guy but Stumbo just makes typical trash talk style threats about how his gun means he isn't going to lose. Pretty much all trash talk sounds that stupid to me, after all; the more outlandish the claim the less substantial it tends to be... but when it gets to a certain point, you can't take the chance.

@ Everyone

Unfortunately there was no way the organizers of the event could take a chance on that. There are several lessons here. For starters, lose the trash talk, or at least the parts that are "empty" threats. Learn local gun laws when traveling; you have a right to protect yourself but you're doing the opposite when you get yourself into trouble over such things. If you do something stupid like make threats of violence against someone (even in private, though Facebook is not truly "private"), make sure you give no appearance that you are going to follow through and preferably clear things up in the same space.

In this case, if there had been a lot less ammunition, it would have been clear there was no intended shooting spree. Even if either of these two were off the deep end and thinking they could get away literally threatening the competition, then it would be clear that was their exact intent.
 

Spiffo

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Calm down bruh, nobody was going to shoot up the place. It was a joke. A stupendously dumb joke, but a joke nonetheless.

Ah, the time-tested "I am going to kill people at this event" joke, followed by bringing guns and ammo to the event. I hear that joke is a hit at parties.
 

whirlpoolm51

Aspiring Trainer
Member
See , now this should be a perfect example of why it is almost impossible to keep guns out of the hands of lunatics , idiots and killers.
The background checks are there to keep already convicted felons from owning guns , not idiots lol
The system we have for buying guns and getting the permit to carry a loaded weapon is perfectly fine.
The problem lies in the fact that it is almost next to impossible to determine who can responsibly own and carry a gun upon purchase..
Yes, you could theoretically give out psychological evaluations of each individual upon purchase and possibly weed out a few individuals incapable of owning a gun but that still doesn't stop people like this.
So , I don't know about you but to me there is no solution to keeping guns out of the hands of unstable people while still respecting the rights of the responsible and stable gun owners.
 

TheStrictNein

Has tried turning it off and on again
Member
According to news reports, Norton was banned from a 'fan forum' and threatened to shoot the mod who banned him 'on Friday'. This happened the week of worlds.
 

TheStrictNein

Has tried turning it off and on again
Member
Ah, the time-tested "I am going to kill people at this event" joke, followed by bringing guns and ammo to the event. I hear that joke is a hit at parties.

Absolutely classic joke. Goes down a treat in schools.
 

ItsHenry

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I don't care if they meant it or not, it is still a horrible thing to do and I am glad Pokemon took notice and acted quickly.
 

Kalyst

Aspiring Trainer
Member
""The Facebook post above was more than likely another immature, insensitive, and irresponsible post from a stupid individual rather than a serious threat. The Pokemon group he posted in is also known for being “uncensored,” which is the kind of place that attracts idiots who try to be “cool” by showing off (the more outrageous, the cooler they are in their own minds). However, we don’t know what could have happened, and that’s why making any kind of threat is taken as seriously as the potential act itself.""

...Good catch there. So sick of the apologists on certain FB groups "he was 18 he was [insert whatever adjectives that means dumb or reckless] so he shouldn't be doing hard time" Excuse me? That couldve been an international nightmare for not just TPCI but for the US in general. Just like that chick who made a bomb threat against an airlines on Twitter, this shouldn't get a free pass either. You made threats in a town/city thats already on hyper alert. You passed through multiple states without proper permits to hold in those states, and a statute that people keep bringing up doesn't (from what I heard I could be wrong though) doesn't apply to the types of guns they had. Being outrageous to be cooler isn't justification for bringing guns around a Pokemon event. I mean the guy smearing poo on the hotel walls got himself a ban you honestly think Pokemon will wave this off as "something stupid?" Poo smearing was stupid.

@Alexander Degtyarev "Calm down bruh, nobody was going to shoot up the place. It was a joke. A stupendously dumb joke, but a joke nonetheless. They walked into the venue unarmed. You don't want to be that one guy that calls for punishment 10x worse than the deed. You have every right to your emotions on the matter but let's be fair at the same time."

I'm sorry but that didn't look like a joke. A joke would be saying that...and then not bringing the weapons you joked SPECIFICALLY ABOUT about in your trunk, unregistered. He was specifically talking about shooting one person but someone didn't take it as a joke. The mod who reported it didn't either. The guns were caught before entering the venue which is why they weren't even there. Also see what I said above about international concerns, nevermind that there's international guests who are under aged here. If I made a stupid joke that I was going to B and E peoples hotel rooms and took pictures of said gear right before I left, should people take it as a joke? I would HOPE they dont!
 

Daily Dewgong

Aspiring Trainer
Member
@Kalyst
I agree totally. It's totally not OK to do such a thing. Look I get it, a joke is a joke but bringing unregistered guns in your car is most certainly not a joke...at least in my book.
 

Donphan_Wins

Aspiring Trainer
Member
See , now this should be a perfect example of why it is almost impossible to keep guns out of the hands of lunatics , idiots and killers.
The background checks are there to keep already convicted felons from owning guns , not idiots lol
The system we have for buying guns and getting the permit to carry a loaded weapon is perfectly fine.
The problem lies in the fact that it is almost next to impossible to determine who can responsibly own and carry a gun upon purchase..
Yes, you could theoretically give out psychological evaluations of each individual upon purchase and possibly weed out a few individuals incapable of owning a gun but that still doesn't stop people like this.
So , I don't know about you but to me there is no solution to keeping guns out of the hands of unstable people while still respecting the rights of the responsible and stable gun owners.

You make them sound worse than they actually are. They weren't going to do anything. They're just proud of the fact that they have guns, which is awesome. Maybe they shouldn't have posted that, but they had no intent of doing anything. They are just law biding citizens who want to protect themselves from people who are threats.
 

Credits

Thundurus from Downundurus
Member
We've all heard the expression "When you assume, you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'." I have no similar clever wordplay to drive home a similar point, but when we make assumptions about anything not in evidence, we can make a monster out of a fool... including ourselves.

@Credits
What all do you know? I mean really know? Lots of guys I know buy ammo in bulk because its less expensive that way. For those that enjoy shooting (and where local regulations permit) their car trunk is where they end up keeping a decent chunk of it, let alone should they find a good deal while traveling and decide to pounce on it.
Ill tell you what i know....despite your own assumption of purchasing discount ammo while driving their pink cars over rainbows and collecting 1-ups from pots of gold along the way, if you need that type of weapon & that much ammo to "protect" yourself, you need another hobby.
 

Credits

Thundurus from Downundurus
Member
Calm down bruh, nobody was going to shoot up the place. It was a joke. A stupendously dumb joke, but a joke nonetheless. They walked into the venue unarmed. You don't want to be that one guy that calls for punishment 10x worse than the deed. You have every right to your emotions on the matter but let's be fair at the same time.

You dont know that for sure and to side with them over a stupid joke makes you just as bad in my eyes. Sorry, but I have my family to protect and like i said dont want to be in the situation to even deal with it, let alone think of the ramifications something like this could possibly have. I have to assume the worst. There is more than enough to set an example that this is not accepted in society and the response here and in a lot of other places seems to follow the same train of thought.
 
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professorlight

Ice Queen
Member
I know EXs are overpowered, but this is ridiculous!

1440358192266


Sorry, I've been wanting to make that joke for quite a while.
 
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