Selinsgrove Area School District (Pennsylvania) board member Jennifer Rager-Kay recently resigned after she utilized a Facebook post to threaten to shoot anyone not wearing a face mask who got withing six feet of her or her family. PennLive.com reported that Rager-Kay was prompted to make the post after seeing a photo of anti-COVID lockdown protesters in the state capital of Harrisburg recently.
Rager-Kay is a doctor who ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for an open state House seat last year. She wrote: “I find it interesting that the largest group of the participants in the anti-lockdown protest and refusing to wear masks in public as they see it as a violation of their constitutional rights are among those against a form of gun regulations.” That’s odd, as these positions are perfectly consistent. The protesters of whom she is referencing correctly believe that the government does not have a constitutional right to make them stay in their homes, cover their faces or arbitrarily interfere with their Second Amendment protections.
So, naturally, she added: “As a concerned carry-permitted gun owner, if you refuse to wear a mask and try to come within 6 feet of me or my family, I will exercise the same constitutional rights to shoot you.” Ms. Rager-Kay, the constitutional right is “to keep and bear Arms,” not to shoot people who don’t wear masks and/or who come near you. This is anything but a subtle difference.
Rager-Kay eventually—and temporarily—issued a semi-apology: “As a wife, mother and physician, it is my job and responsibility to ‘do no harm’ and the constant barrage of protests and defiance to public health reached a boiling point for me, thus the reason for my overly dramatic and exaggerated post. My words demonstrated how constitutional rights can be misinterpreted, and were meant to serve as an example of extremism.” Ironically, her words certainly did demonstrate how constitutional rights can be misinterpreted…by Rager-Kay herself. Her “apology” referred to those who decline to wear masks as “bioterrorists.” Like most on the left, she doesn’t like those peaceably protesting stupefying government overreach and the capricious taking of people’s freedoms, but probably is sympathetic to those “protesters” in Minneapolis who burned and looted countless businesses and cars, and generally went around breaking everything they didn’t steal.
The good doctor responded to those calling for her resignation by taking to Facebook again, noting: “My post was described as hateful, but hateful suggests a lack of love. And to me, lack of love is demonstrated by refusing to wear a mask out of love for those you encounter.” Like the “lack of love” demonstrated by those whom you threaten to shoot. Amazing. She also wrote: “And if I must serve as the scapegoat to call attention to the extreme level of hatred and ignorance that exists and continues to pervade our community in attempt for reconciliation, I will gladly accept that burden. I can only apologize to those who have supported me and may share in my disappointment.” She’s a martyr! Ms. Misunderstood, taking one for the team, so to speak. (But not a bullet, that she reserves for facemask deniers.)
Rager-Kay succeeded in
calling attention to the “extreme level of hatred and ignorance that exists.”
Not in the way in which she intended, but by threatening to shoot those she
ignorantly deemed haters and ignoramuses for demurring to wear facial masks.
One last dose of irony and
humor: the PennLive.com story notes that Rager-Kay’s Facebook page,
which she has apparently taken down, included a very recent photo of “a parade
of fire equipment” gathered for her son’s birthday, showing a firefighter
giving her son a gift. Neither of them is wearing a mask.
Hope that gift wasn’t the
coronavirus, but at least no one was shot.
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