I haven’t covered it here but if you haven’t been following the story of Jussie Smollett, here is what happened in a nutshell.

Jussie Smollett is a gay, black actor who plays a gay black man on a FOX show called Empire which is about a hip-hip record label.  Smollett claimed that he was out late at night in Chicago, getting a sandwich when he was attacked, called the n-word, and f-word, had a noose put around his neck, and then bleach poured on him in a hate crime.

During one of the iterations of this story, Smollett claimed that that the two men that attacked him were white and said “this is MAGA country.”  In Chicago.  “MAGA Country.”  In.  Chicago.

The predictable happened, the Left said this was a “modern day lynching,” and evidence that the MAGA hat was the new Klan hood.

Chicago Police did a hell of a job investigating this hate crime (seriously, no sarcasm here). As it turns out, Smollett hired two guys from Nigeria, one who was en extra on Empire, to stage the attack, presumably to generate sympathy for Smollett who may have been slated to be written out of the show.

I bring all this up because if you have been following this case for the last two weeks, you will have seen talking head after talking head say that the “MAGA hat is the new Klan hood” a lot.  It’s become a popular talking point.

Now we take you all the way to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to get the story that I’m really covering.

Man accused of pulling gun on victim wearing MAGA hat

A Tennessee man is in jail after being accused of pulling a gun on a Sam’s Club customer Saturday.

According to the police report, officers were called to Sam’s Club due to a person with a gun.

According to the alleged victim Terry Pierce, a man pulled a gun on him because he was wearing a Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat.

The police report confirms that the suspect, identified as James Phillips, admitted to flipping off Pierce and Pierce’s wife because of their hats.

Well, that’s not good.

Also, brace yourselves, because this next part get’s a little batshittery.

Pierce tells 13 News that he was shopping with his wife when Phillips “Pulled a .40 caliber out and stuck it in my face, backed up and said, ‘It’s a good day for you to die.'”

That’s scary.

Pierce went on to tell 13 News, “I said, ‘Then pull the trigger. Put the gun down and fight me or pull the trigger. Whichever one you want.’ And he backed up and he said it again, he said, ‘It’s a good day for you to die.'”

Pierce said the Phillips then took off. That’s when Pierce followed him out into the parking lot.

What the fuck?  That’s like something out of a bad movie, not real life.  Holy hell, what do they put in the water in Kentucky?

“I went out the front of the store to confront him again and that’s when I got him in his car. He couldn’t leave because his mother was still in the store. And we were having a verbal altercation outside,” said Pierce.

Pierce added, “He tried telling me I assaulted him and I said, ‘I never touched you.’

Look, a guy pulls a gun on you, you don’t start an argument with him, okay?

According to the police report, surveillance video confirms Pierce’s story that he did not put his hands on Phillips.

The report does mention that witnesses and Pierce said Phillips pulled a gun on Pierce inside the store but this couldn’t be seen on surveillance video due to Phillips backing out of the view of the camera.

In the report, police say Phillips had a Glock .40 caliber with a round chambered in his back pocket and two additional magazines in another pocket.

So we have witnesses and evidence that a gun was pulled.  This is surreal.

Police say Phillips has a current concealed carry permit in Tennessee, where he is from.

Not after that he doesn’t.

No one was injured, but police arrested Phillips for wanton endangerment first degree. Phillips is in the Warren County Regional Jail.

At first this incident seemed so bizarre that I didn’t expect it to be real, but the police reviewed the video and talked to witnesses and made an arrest.  Hopefully, we will learn more.

I fully expect the anti-gun crowd to wave the not-bloody shirt on this about how CCW permit holders can’t be trusted, despite the extremely low rate of criminality of CCW permit holders by-and-large.

If this turns out to be completely true, that Phillips is an asshole who decided to pull a gun on a guy because of his MAGA hat, than this is another example of Democrats wanting to ban guns because they know they can’t be trusted with them and project that onto everyone else.

Also, if this turns out to be true, the same antis who use this as evidence that CCW permit holders can be trusted will conveniently leave out the detail that it was a non-Trump supporter pulling a gun on a MAGA hat wearer because it doesn’t help their cause that it was the (presumably) Democrat gun owner going nuts and not the Trump supporter.

Lastly, if this turns out to be true, since New Years, we would have had two confirmed hate crime hoaxes in which the MAGA hat was denounced as the new Klan hood, the Covington Catholic School incident and the Jussie Smollett incident.  Yet, the real hate crime would be the threatening of a person in a MAGA hat with a gun.

Time will tell.  This is one to keep tabs on.