Somewhere, a conservative radio show host will say John Russell Howard, a triple-first-named name from Basin, Montana was simply exercising his First and Second Amendment rights simultaneously when he walked down the streets armed with multiple weapons, promising to “clean” the town of its gay and lesbian residents. He’d be wrong, of course, but he’ll make the claim.
But after federal authorities stepped in and used the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act to bring federal charges, Howard was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for his March 2020 rampage, according to the Washington Post. Howard terrorized the town of 270 people, stopping in front of houses where he believed gay or lesbian people lived, at one point firing a number of rounds onto a woman’s property.
Shockingly, the armed, overweight white guy spewing hate speech was taken into custody without him getting shot, strangled or tasered, even after a sheriff’s deputy recorded him on video firing his weapon into someone’s property–and then running away when the deputy tried to apprehend him. He was arrested the next day, because apparently an APB for an overweight white guy with a gun in Montana would have led to civil rights violations.