A 49-year-old Las Vegas man was arrested near former President Donald Trump's rally in Coachella with a loaded firearm and a high-capacity magazine, officials say.
A 49-year-old Las Vegas man was arrested near former President Donald Trump's rally in Coachella on Saturday with a loaded firearm and a high-capacity magazine, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said Sunday.
Deputies assigned to the rally contacted the driver of a black SUV at a checkpoint near the intersection of Avenue 52 and Celebration Drive just before 5 p.m. Saturday, sheriff's officials said.
They allegedly found the driver in possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun and a high-capacity magazine. The driver was identified as Vem Miller, and was taken into custody and later booked at the John J. Benoit Detention Center on suspicion of possessing a loaded firearm and possessing a high-capacity magazine.
I would be interested to see what information comes out on this one. A shotgun and handgun isn't going to do shit for an assassination attempt. Unless you are Gavrilo Princip.
Handguns did the job on Ronald Reagan and almost for Gerald Ford.
Leaving Abe Lincoln to one side, but if you are lucky and your security detail is a bit lax, a handgun can get the job done. I'm Australian, so we don't see much of that sort of thing.
"high-capacity magazine" can refer to anything ranging from a fairly standard AR15 30-round stanag mag to a 200-round box magazine. Like, technically a high-capacity magazine is any magazine that holds more rounds than a standard magazine for a given firearm; but legally-speaking most states with laws regulating magazine capacity tend to define "high-capacity" as being more than 10~15 rounds for rifles.
So they could have had a normal Glock-19 magazine (illegal in some states as they hold 15 rounds, more than some states allow pistols to have) or a loose AR15 magazine in their glovebox from their last gunshoot, or they could have had a 100 round drum mag for their Glock.
Edit: California sounds like they have a universal 10-round magazine limit, which means a standard G19 magazine would be illegal.
Local outlets say that Miller is a registered Republican. He has a master's degree from UCLA and campaigned for Nevada's state assembly in 2022, but lost in the primary election, according to local daily newspaper The Press-Enterprise.
Bianco said he is part of a right-leaning anti-government group and considers himself a sovereign citizen, someone who does not believe they are subject to government laws unless they agree to them.
I'm more amused than I really should be about how they are eating their own now. Unless I'm misremembering, none of the three have been lefties of any stripe.
I don’t want to give any sovcits any credit at all but trumps recent rhetoric is so openly authoritarian that some of them might have actually realized the face eating leopard is a threat to them too
Edit: I can’t believe I just thought of this, but these could also be folks that hopes to start a civil war because they either believe it’s inevitable, are obsessed with the Turner Diaries, or both.
I call bullshit. He wasn't there to assassinate Trump. If he was, they sure as shit aren't letting him out on $5k bond the same day with only minor charges.
Rallies are considered private events. You can regulate firearms at private events even in states with permissive firearm laws. Firearms were disallowed at the NRA conference during the leadership event.
They found him with a shotgun and a handgun and they think they stopped an assassination attempt? Sounds like bs; you’re not going to get close enough to use those unless someone really messes up at their job.
I think it's just the media trying to conflate it with assassination attempts. I doubt anyone involved actually thinks it was, but now Trump gets to throw this crap around and his supporters will believe it.
The article quotes the sheriffs dept as saying that they stopped an assassination attempt; the media is just reporting what they said. So, it sounds like the sheriffs dept are just inflating the issue to make themselves look better, which will give the trump campaign more fuel.
If he's a SovCit, I'm surprised he doesn't have an RPG in his car to be honest. And it wouldn't have anything to do with Trump. It would have to do with their contract being violated or whatever.
It's kind of amazing how this is suddenly all blowing back on him. His years of calling for violence is just causing all these guys to aim that violence towards him. Did he say something that pissed off/disappointed a subset of his followers or something?
The guy interviewed Ivan Raiklin a couple weeks ago who is the "secretary of retribution." Ivan Raiklin was on Info Wars talking with Jones about how if Trump were assassinated, it would be the best case scenario for Republicans because Vance would be the candidate then and then Republicans would commit a "cleansing."
This seems like a bit of a conspiracy against Trump but it is coming from the right.
I've said since the debate that something seems weird. It very much feels like Vance fully expects to be president, not VP. I don't know why or how that would come about, but he's not running like a typical VP.
Nothing really points to him being a wannabe assassin, other than the fact that he had guns near where Trump was and bogus paperwork. The guy's a sovcit. Being armed to the teeth and having fake papers is what they do. As for why he'd be at a Trump rally, well... it's the same reason you'd find klansmen dancing around a burning cross. Guarantee the Trumpers are going to throw this guy under the bus immediately, though, despite the fact that there's nothing indicating he wanted to kill Trump, and despite a lot of Trumpers being open carriers themselves.