A local Baltimore media journalist reported on a guy in Severn, Maryland, who was arrested for carrying an AR-15 near a school bus stop in defiance of the state’s new gun control laws.
Tolly Taylor, the reporter for WBAL-TV who reported the story, tweeted a preview of the upcoming segment:
He said tonight on WBAL-TV11- Elementary school students have reported a man was armed with an AR-15 at the bus stop where they get off to and from school.
The tweet said the man claimed he was protesting the gun control bill signed by Governor Wes Moore, and the parents told their children were scared.
The message concluded that at 5 and 6 o’clock, arguments from both camps would be heard.
Many people were unhappy with Taylor’s decision to present the narrative as one with “two sides.”
The report started with a parent’s mobile phone video of the bus letting off students at the stop. It showed a man across the street with an openly carried long rifle, as is lawful in Maryland.
Jamie Sparrow, the parent, said that the man had been there for three weeks.
Sparrow said the man with the rifle said he and others were looking at him like a bunch of scared bowling pins.
Sparrow was concerned because If they were the pins, the man with the rifle would think of himself as the bowling ball.
The man with the rifle is J’Den McAdory, and he said he’s just doing it to prove a point – that he is legally allowed to do what he is doing, and his goal is to reduce the amount of crime in the neighborhood. He is also protesting the governor’s gun control laws that take effect on October 1st. He said he illustrates that guns are safe if handled by the right people.
Governor Moore called the man “cowardly.”
McAdory said he had settled his differences with the school district and would no longer protest during pick-up and drop-off hours.
Ironically, the police presence in the area increased because of the peaceful man legally carrying a rifle in public.
