Licensed Gun Carrier Publicly Shamed And Ridiculed While Attending High School Event

Mar 9, 2015 | 19 comments

Choir Director Calls The Cops On Man Legally Carrying A Gun

Chuck Ross – The Daily Caller

A Michigan man was not acting erratically or threatening other people at an Ann Arbor high school music recital, but he was openly — and legally — carrying a firearm.

 

That was enough for a school choir director to call police and for a music professor to publicly shame him at the event.

 

The incident happened Thursday evening at Pioneer High School when Steven Lorenz, the director of choirs at the school, spotted the man, later identified as Joshua Wade, openly carrying a gun and called police.

 

Police arrived to investigate and determined that Wade had not broken the law.

 

But that was not good enough for one event attendee, University of Michigan, Flint music professor Brian DiBlassio.

 

DiBlassio took unsolicited photos of Wade carrying the holstered gun and uploaded his picture to Facebook along with two breathless posts.

 

The professor wrote in his first missive:

 

There’s an idiot with a handgun with two magazines attending the Ann Arbor Pioneer Choral Cavalcade, sitting in the tenth row. Police came in droves, escorted him out to interview him in the hallway and could do nothing based on his permit. He’s now back listening to 8th grade girls singing Hey Jude. My first experience witnessing this ridiculous show of…I don’t know what. Who does this at an event with 100s of children ffs??? Who does this anywhere? ‘Merica!

 

DiBlassio’s second post included the man’s picture and other identifying information. DiBlassio said that Wade is the grandson of a former superintendent of Ann Arbor public schools.

 

I decided that the parents of 200+ junior high and high school students might want to know that they had someone with a military weapon, replete with rounds of ammo, watching their kids sing (he was in the front row). After the last song (about global unity and peace, from the olympics. .oy), I got up on my soapbox — literally, it was a theatre box — and announced as much to the entire audience. In the lobby, [redacted], the former Deputy Superintendent for. Business Affairs. for Ann Arbor Public Schools lectured me on how wrong it was for me to disrupt a public event (disrupting people exiting the auditorium?), etc. Soon after I learned who brought the weapon into the concert. [redacted] grandson (phone in the pocket).

 

TheDC contacted DiBlassio, who was unapologetic over his actions even though Wade had every legal right to carry the gun.

I have to admit, there aren’t too many stories that make me as angry as this one. It is one thing if you are anti-gun and disagree with firearms laws. It is another thing to go out of your way to disrupt an event, try to ruin someones life, and publicly admonish someone for doing something completely legal and ethical.

This choir director, DiBlassio, (hmmm that name sounds familiar) has the police called on a man who is legally open carrying his gun. All this man wanted to do was watch his niece sing at this choir event with his family. He had attended a similar event in the fall while carrying his firearm and had no problems.

After the police arrived and cleared Wade (the gun carrier) from any wrongdoing, Wade returned to his seat peacefully to try and enjoy the show. This, however, was not good enough for DiBlassio who decided that if the police were not going to do something about the situation he did not like, he was going to take matters into his own hands.

So instead of focusing on the event, and giving the students the attention they deserved since it was their night to perform, DiBlassio begins to take pictures of the man and posting them to Facebook with fear inducing warnings to the people in attendance.

When this did not work to cause sufficient chaos, DiBlassio then stood up and yelled to get the audience attention. He began publicly “shaming” Wade to the rest of the audience by starting off with ” I just thought you would all like to know….”

Once again, DiBlassion decided to make this all about him instead of letting the event be about the students in the choir. So incensed and afraid of guns, this man (I use that term loosely for DiBlassio) continued his rant to the audience about how there was someone sitting in the front row (pointing to Wade) carrying a “military” weapon with live ammunition.

When he was later informed that what Wade was doing was perfectly legal, DiBlassio said he would still do it again because gosh darnnit he doesn’t agree with it so he has no problem disrupting an event, taking photos of a person against their will, publishing those photos with a name on Facebook, and then yelling to the audience about this man in front of everyone.

Since this incident occurred Wade has received threats of violence against him, along with having his address listed online for everyone to see.

DiBlassio is a sick human being, and a product of the propaganda push to create hyper-fear towards guns.