A political statement? Or just someone who has no business with a firearm?

Is Nahshon Shelton now the idol of all the anti-tax and firearms fanatics who exist in our society?

SHELTON: In jail over 22 cents?

I’d hope not. Although considering how rigid they are to their causes without regard to how their rhetoric actually fits in to our daily lives, you never know.

FOR THE RECORD, Shelton is a Garfield Park neighborhood resident who is going to be spending the next few months/years living without the option of bond at the Cook County Jail – depending on how long it takes Cook County state’s attorney’s office to prosecute his criminal case.

He got arrested on Saturday when he pulled a blue-steel Intratec .22-caliber automatic weapon out of a Gucci bag he was carrying. The Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday that Shelton threatened to kill everyone in the store.

What was it that ticked Shelton off?

It seems he was at a store on Madison Street near Pulaski Road, and objected to the fact that the store wanted to charge him more than the $1.79 list price for a two-liter bottle of Pepsi cola.

TWENTY TWO CENTS more, to be exact. Because that’s how much all the assorted taxes came to on that bottle of pop.

“This is my neighborhood. I’m tax-exempt,” is what he supposedly told the police when they questioned him about the incident.

I’m not trying to make light of a criminal act, or the alleged behavior of Shelton, a 36-year-old with a prior criminal record (which means he never would have got a concealed carry permit for his power-packed Gucci satchel).

But in reading about his incident, I wonder how many of those anti-tax types (particularly the ones who have a penchant for firearms of all types) wish they could do something exactly like what Shelton did?



They had a busy weekend

I THINK AN incident like this puts the nonsensical nature of their views into a proper perspective. Just nuts, rather than any kind of revolutionary thought process that would benefit our society.

You can complain all you want about excess taxes – and being appalled that Gov. Pat Quinn is in a position this spring where he’s calling for an extension of an increase on the income tax while also being asked to sign into law a measure that could raise local property taxes (in Chicago-proper, at least) as well!

But the idea is that governments do have some services they must perform, and there needs to be a source of funding to cover the ever-increasing costs of things (unless you want to complain and rant about how cheap – I remember when newspapers were 20 cents, and not the current $1-1.50 per day – things used to be.

A part of me thinks of all these anti-tax types as being as ridiculous as what Shelton is alleged to have done.

WE CAN ONLY be thankful that police happened to be in the area of the store at the time of the incident. Because Shelton, according to police, was carrying a weapon with a round of ammunition in the chamber, eight more rounds in the magazine, and five rounds in yet another magazine.

He could easily have become the lede story of what was a particularly violent weekend – there were 36 people shot in Chicago during one 36-hour time period from Saturday into early Sunday. Four of those people did die, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Pay up!!!

And the over-swamped Police Department had to cope with all of this violence. Just think how much worse things would be if the anti-tax types (some of whom are incredibly unbending in their view on the issue) were to ever get their way and we got the kind of police department they would want us to be able to afford?

Just a thought to keep in mind for those of you ranting and raging about Tax Day and the size of the checks you had to write out to be in compliance with the governments on your share of the tax bill.

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