Yahoo News – by Jonathon M. Seidl | The Blaze
GREELEY, Colo. (TheBlaze/AP) — Two billboards in which images of Native Americans are used to make a gun rights argument are causing a stir with some residents who say the image is offensive and insensitive.
The billboards in this northern Colorado city show three men dressed in traditional Native American attire and the words “Turn in your arms. The government will take care of you.”
Matt Wells, an account executive with Lamar Advertising in Denver, said Monday a group of local residents purchased the space.
“They have asked to remain anonymous,” he said.
He also refused to disclose the cost, but said the billboards are only appearing in the Greeley area. Wells said he has not received any complaints so far.
“I think it’s a little bit extreme, of course, but I think people are really worried about their gun rights and what liberties are going to be taken away,” Wells told the Greeley Tribune(http://tinyurl.com/cdtkgj2 ).
Greeley resident Kerri Salazar, who is of Native American descent, said she was livid when she learned about it. She said she doesn’t have a problem with the gun rights message, but she’s offended the Native American people were singled out, apparently without their consent.
“I think we all get that (Second Amendment) message. What I don’t understand is how an organization can post something like that and not think about the ripple effect that it’s gonna have through the community,” she said.
“I was disgusted. I was disgusted,” Greeley resident Maureen Brucker added to KUSA-TV.
Irene Vernon, a Colorado State University professor and chairwoman of the ethnic studies department, said the message on the billboard is taking a narrow view of a much more complicated history of the Native American plight. She said it’s not as if Native Americans just gave up their guns and wound up on reservations.
“It wasn’t just about our guns,” said Vernon, a Native American.
Greeley resident Maureen Brucker, who has worked with Native American organizations and who frequents the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota as an honorary family member, said she thinks the billboards are making light of atrocities the federal government committed against Native Americans.
She said the billboard brings to her mind one of the most horrendous examples of that, the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1890. Historical accounts say the 7th Cavalry had detained a band of Native Americans and asked them to give up their weapons. Troops began firing after a shot rang out. Death toll estimates of Native American men, women and children range from 150 to 300.
Brucker said she thinks those who put up the billboards should come forward and to discuss their viewpoints.
“I thought it was pretty cowardly that someone would put something like that up and spend the money for a billboard but didn’t have the courage to put their name on it,” she said.
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Information from: Greeley Daily Tribune, http://greeleytribune.com
http://news.yahoo.com/pro-gun-billboard-colo-residents-upset-120046702.html
“The government will take care of you” Yea, just like they did the Native
Americans – killing them softly and secretly every chance they got, mentally and
physically.
and spiritually to the point we don’t even know who we are in the world. for some odd reason we have been chosen as the sacrificial lambs which causes me to wonder why. are we the linch pin to their whole operation going bust. if fellow natives are offended by this then you obviously haven’t been paying attention but i guess thats why they call it a reservation.
The govt did give the Indians blankets. Unfortunately, they were laced with small pox
Yep, read about this along with flying over their gov owned reservations,
day and nite, spraying deadly pesticides and radiation poisoning.
Thought to be worthless lands were given (already theirs) to the natives
and when found to have valuable resources, the natives were again screwed.
Just unfrigginbelievable!!!!!!
It does make a point though, doesn’t it?.
My Fellow Americans:
Of course its offensive,… the truth always is.
“It wasn’t just about guns,….”,. No, it wasn’t,… however that was the lynch pin to exterminating them as a peoples.
JD – US Marines – We’re next,…. who is offended by that?
“It wasn’t just about our guns,” said Vernon
She gets it, but she does not understand she has it.
“it” never is just about the guns.
Not yesterday, not today.
And THAT, is why this truth is important.
Awwww…..boooo….hoooo…..wahhhhh!!!!
Of course it’s offensive! That’s the point! It’s to make a statement and to make people angry that the government is out to exterminate us and that we need to wake up and do something about it NOW before it’s too late. There is no time left and that’s why they are doing it. It’s now or never. If people don’t like it, then go live in North Korea.
I’m so sick of people crying and saying, “I feel disgusted. I feel upset.” This psychological bullshit world we live in always has to invoke the question, “And how does that make you feel?” crap. And they wonder why this country is F**ked up!.
“Analyze This” you cowardly sheeple:
Our free speech and gun rights and rights in general are being taken away from us! You better get with the program or find yourselves in a FEMA camp or a ditch somewhere, erased from existence. If that’s what you want then may God have mercy on your soul. Otherwise, get up off your butt and do something about it by fighting back against our government who is forcing us to do this in the first place. They started it, now help us finish it! Enough with baby whining, grow up and start taking action!
Absolutely psychological. The portrayed opinions from a “similar” people shows only 2 sides. Every story has 3 sides. The side of the whole truth is missing here. Who’s to say the anonymous residents that bought the ad aren’t the same ones providing the only possible options, assuming it matters. VERY subversive. It wasn’t an issue until someone found a way to benefit from it.
Awwww, the sheep can only handle a warm fuzzy! I’m offended by their damned ignorance.
Truth is not now, nor has it ever been a warm fuzzy. Truth is in your face and often hurts. Quite frankly, if it doesn’t sting you ain’t never going to remember it!
Hey Rhums,Didnt that old saying go like “the truth will set you free but first it will piss you off” it has always baffled me how the TRUTH can excite people it has no FEELING, neither hot nor cold it just IS ,plain and simple stand alone, needs no laws to support it.Only lies and made up statistics need the dark ,unjust laws to hide facts Like our founders said “For me I’ll take the truth ,100% unblemished truth.For xample TRUSTING any gubberment is FATAL for all life forms. This is a universal truth according to history.
Steve
“Quite frankly, if it doesn’t sting you ain’t never going to remember it!”
You’re absolutely right, Rhum. And that’s the bottom line of the overall message. These sheeple need to get stung or stimulated if the truth is to be heard, remembered and permanently ingrained inside their heads.
http://theinternetpost.net/2013/04/30/wounded-knee-another-gun-control-slaughter/
The only thing i find offensive about it is that the indians find it offensive.They should be standing up and saying “you better be paying attention white man cause it’s about to happen to you and all other peoples”.Being part cherokee myself the last thing it is ,is offensive.But as JD said the truth always hurts.My opinion,we need more hurt.
I’m Native American…I have no problem with the billboard. It’s nothing but the truth, point made…very well!
Agree or not, it’s freedom of speech. If you don’t like it, don’t look at it. I don’t see any controversy at all.
Obviously, the only native Americans that have a problem with this are the ones who have no clue as to the so-called ‘government’s’ ultimate agenda.
They would be exterminated right along with the rest of us, if the NWO has it’s way.
I guess they don’t have a problem with being murdered, just as long as they’re not ‘offended’ beforehand.
They have my consent, that’s 1 vote by a Keetowah. I would like to know who this bill board is incensititve to? Who is it offensive to? It draws attention to exactly by what means my people were exterminated, something most people forget. It has happened before and it will happen again if we do not stop it. The liberal whites who are complaining can shove it up their ass. They do not speak for us.
Where did the Indian woman get the idea US citizens have to get approval from members of a group before referrencing them in an act of free speech?
I wonder what percentage of the Americans who are authorized to vote can’t fathom the Bill Of Rights.
If the Native Americans, for whom I have the highest respect as a People, had owned the same arms that the European invaders had, I believe that this country would be very different. My ancestors would have been gunned back to Europe – fast.
The Native Americans were fierce, proud, spiritual, and above all, trusting people, who respected the earth. We screwed them – big time.
The billboard simply reaffirms this: the unimaginable horrors of what the Europeans did to those noble People, is precisely what zion ists & co. dream of doing to us. I say “dream” because it will never happen.
The only way that this “Turn In Your Arms, The Government Will Take Care of You” message works IS to use Native Americans in the picture. Imagine three white guys in the picture. It wouldn’t make sense and it certainly would not have the impact that this does.
Redhorse is right. “The only thing i find offensive about it is that the indians find it offensive”
When Columbus “discovered” Amerika, there were 115 million human beings already living here. When the white man wasn’t outright murdering them, they were wiping out their food sources. Did they really need to kill all those buffalo or to set up fish wheels on the Columbia River to collect all those Salmon before they could spawn. When they wiped out the endless food sources, they wiped out freedom, not only for “Indians” but for us all.
Those “Eastern speculators” who financed the destruction of our native food sources are the same “Tribe” that trafficked African slaves, created GMO food, fluoridates our water, vaccinates our babies, who fear our guns, who prints our money and bribes our politicians to this day.