Categories
Category: Grumpy’s hall of Shame
The U.S. Military Academy no longer will use the motto “Duty, Honor, Country” in its mission statement, according to West Point’s superintendent.
The phrase, which was highlighted in a famous speech by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1962, will be replaced by a line that includes the words, “Army Values.”
Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth and Army Chief of Staff Randy George both approved the change, which critics may see as West Point going woke.
“Our responsibility to produce leaders to fight and win our nation’s wars requires us to assess ourselves regularly,” Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland wrote in a letter to cadets and supporters on Monday.
“Thus, over the past year and a half, working with leaders from across West Point and external stakeholders, we reviewed our vision, mission, and strategy to serve this purpose.”
Gilland explained that the new mission statement “binds the Academy to the Army.”
“As a result of this assessment, we recommended the following mission statement to our senior Army leadership: To build, educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets to be commissioned leaders of character committed to the Army Values and ready for a lifetime of service to the Army and Nation,“ he wrote.
Gilland made a point to say that West Point’s mission statement has changed nine times and that “Duty, Honor, Country was first added to the mission statement in 1998.”
The general added that “Army Values include Duty and Honor, and Country is reflected in Loyalty, bearing true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit, and other Soldiers.”
The academy’s previous mission statement was: “To educate, train and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the nation as an officer in the United States Army.”
One West Point graduate, Randy DeSoto, wrote in The Western Journal that he was among the “entire Corps of Cadets” who watched a movie of MacArthur’s speech on its 25th anniversary in 1987.
“The general closed by telling the cadets, ‘In the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country,'” DeSoto wrote.
“Hopefully, the same will be true for today’s West Point cadets, even with ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ no longer in the mission statement.”
At GunsAmerica, our general policy is to avoid glorifying mass shooters by naming them. But the 2012 Aurora Theater shooting demands we break this rule, not to focus on the shooter, but on a potentially overlooked catalyst – Big Pharma.
Here’s the shocker. The world has been fixated on the “orange-haired psycho” responsible for the carnage at the Aurora movie theater, where 12 lives were lost and 70 were injured. But it’s time to challenge the one-dimensional villain narrative.
What if the real story has been hiding in plain sight?
Enter the compelling insights of Dr. David Healy, a leading psychiatrist and a beacon of clarity in a sea of pharmaceutical ambiguity. In a sobering interview with Dr. Josef on YouTube (see above), Healy tears down the mainstream facade. His point? We’re missing a critical piece of the puzzle.
Healy paints a picture of the shooter before the tragedy: a typical college student battling shyness, not a natural born killer.
“I was struck by the fact that it was a very normal human being; this was not a monster in the sense of someone who kills 12 other people and injures 72 others,” he tells Dr. Josef.
Healy interviewed the suspect at the behest of his legal defense team prior to the trial. Dr. Healy also had the opportunity to examine all the suspect’s medical reports.
What Healy found was the twist in his tale began with the Pfizer-produced Zoloft, an SSRI prescribed for his introversion.
As the patient’s mental state deteriorated (likely suffering from “disinhibited delirium,” per Dr. Healy), his dosage was ramped up – a move Healy slams as disastrously misguided. The result?
A once-timid student morphing into an unrecognizable version of himself, engaging in uncharacteristic behaviors.
“He’s beginning to do things, like he finds it easy to go and ask girls out. He picks the prettiest girl in the class and asks her out. You know this kind of behavior just wasn’t happening before,” explains Dr. Healy.
“He’s beginning to buy things that, you know, he wouldn’t have ever bought before including guns, and he goes along to a shooting range to teach himself how to shoot and things like this. This is all very unusual behavior for him; there’s never been anything like this before.”
Then, according to Dr. Healy, he goes to his psychiatrist and says, “Look I’m not much better, and if I was to tell you what I was thinking you’d lock me up.”
Eventually, he drops out of school, stops taking the Zoloft and goes into an abrupt withdrawal. Post-medication, the suspect’s actions escalated to the point of no return. Everyone knows what happens next.
And, Healy’s conclusion is stark: “You know you can’t be absolutely certain that the drugs caused it but I think it’s highly likely that the Zoloft he was on and the withdrawal from it caused the problems.”
Healy doesn’t stop there. He links a potential genetic factor to the shooter’s adverse reaction to SSRIs, a factor ignored or overlooked by his doctors.
“Both of his parents at one point or another had had an SSRI and that they’d had reactions not unlike the ones that he’d had, and things became terribly vivid and abnormal,” he says.
The Aurora Theater shooting saga, spotlighted by Dr. Healy, isn’t just an isolated incident of potential medication-induced violence. It’s a tip of an iceberg in a sea of pharmaceutical implications, extending far beyond SSRIs like Zoloft.
Consider the eye-opening case of Singulair (made by Merck), an asthma medication. A forceful letter this week from the NY State Attorney General’s Office to the FDA blasts the lid off concerning reports of Singulair causing aggressive behavior ( e.g. “rage”) and suicidal thoughts.
This isn’t just a footnote; it’s a glaring alarm signal!
The Attorney General’s direct call to the FDA paints a grim picture, revealing a critical oversight in medication monitoring.
The Singulair debacle corroborates Healy’s argument – the problem of drugs triggering violent reactions is more widespread and insidious than we’ve been led to believe. This isn’t about one type of drug or one tragic event; it’s a systemic flaw.
As Dr. Healy told Dr. Josef, “There’s a range of drugs that can cause these things so my key take-home message is if you go on any drug and feel weird you’re probably right.”
But, “Now the world we live in is one where you’ll be told don’t go off your drugs, whether it’s even an asthma drug or whatever, ‘don’t come off your drugs without consulting your doctor.’ That’s not safe anymore.”
“If you’ve got a good doctor it may work. But all too often doctors will increase the dose of the drug you’re on when you say you feel weird,” warns Healy.
The Aurora Theater case, when seen in this expanded context, becomes even more alarming. As mentioned, it’s no longer just a story of a single shooter and an SSRI. It’s a wakeup call echoing across the entire medical and regulatory landscape, urging a serious, unflinching reexamination of how all medications are monitored, reported, and discussed.
It’s high time for a bold, unvarnished conversation about the full spectrum of potential medication side effects. This is about public health, public safety, and the urgent need for transparency and accountability from Big Pharma and the FDA.
As Healy noted explicitly in the interview, “the Pfizer articles on Zoloft are ghost written; you realize that not even FDA has seen the data from the clinical trials.”
What?!!! How is that even possible???
It’s evident that we’re standing at a crossroads demanding answers. These answers aren’t just crucial pieces of a complex puzzle; they could very well hold the key to averting future mass killings.
The second week of testimony in the New York trial of NRA, CEO Wayne LaPierre, Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer, and former Treasurer Woody Phillips wrapped up on Friday, January 19, 2024, and things are not looking good for the defendants. A fourth former executive, LaPierre’s former deputy Josh Powell, pled guilty days before the trial began.
Also, just days before the trial, LaPierre announced his resignation, effective at the end of January 2024, at an NRA Board of Directors meeting. Many spectators and even some participants have missed the delayed effect. He’s still technically in charge and, presumably, still having his legal bills covered by NRA members’ money.
In his resignation announcement, LaPierre said he was stepping down for health reasons. He is reported to be suffering from the debilitating effects of chronic Lyme Disease, a tick-borne bacterial infection that can cause a variety of serious health problems. Having struggled with Lyme Disease myself and had people close to me affected by the chronic form of the infection, I won’t join in the chorus that has suggested the whole thing is some ruse on LaPierre’s part.
Lapierre’s Brain Is Shrinking!?
LaPierre has been in the courtroom every day during the two weeks of the trial. Still, his attorney has now submitted doctors’ notes asking the court for special accommodations for LaPierre during his upcoming testimony. The lawyer, supported by the doctors’ notes, says that, along with headaches, vision problems, and fatigue,
LaPierre is also suffering from cognitive issues related to the loss of cerebral mass. In other words, he’s saying LaPierre’s brain is shrinking, impacting his ability to think clearly and remember things. Because of this, the attorney is asking that the judge allow LaPierre and his lawyers to call timeouts during his upcoming testimony, possibly breaking it up over several days rather than trying to grind through one or two days of uninterrupted time on the stand.
The judge seems willing to accommodate LaPierre’s physical limitations and allow other witnesses to be called when and if LaPierre is incapacitated. This raises another important question about who’s running the NRA and why LaPierre remains officially in charge.
According to the letters from his doctors, LaPierre’s health has been in decline for several years.
His current condition was reported to NRA President Charles Cotton on January 3, 2024, two days before LaPierre announced his pending resignation. So why is LaPierre still holding the Executive Vice Presidency of the NRA?
If LaPierre is unable to testify for several hours consecutively due to his illness, and considering he is attending the trial in New York instead of being at his office at NRA headquarters, why didn’t he resign immediately on January 5? This was when the NRA Board was meeting, and they could have appointed a temporary replacement then rather than waiting for a month.
The NRA Bylaws say that in the case of a vacancy in the office of Executive Vice President, the Executive Director of General Operations is to fill the position until the Board meets to name a suitable replacement. LaPierre unceremoniously fired Joe DeBergalis, the ED of General Operations, shortly before Christmas, replacing him with Andrew Arulanandam. Arulanandam has been LaPierre’s top PR flack and spokesperson for several years. While his face is familiar to some members and the media, it would be a stretch to suggest he is qualified to run General Operations, and he’s certainly not qualified to be the CEO of the NRA.
During his testimony on Thursday and Friday, former Executive Director of NRA-ILA Chris Cox voiced a similar sentiment. Cox suggested that LaPierre demonstrated poor judgment in hiring, pointing to Josh Powell and Andrew Arulanandam as examples. Powell was LaPierre’s deputy who oversaw the collapse of the NRA’s controversial CarryGuard program and has already pled guilty in the New York trial. Arulanandam, who first worked under Cox in ILA before being moved over to NRA HQ by LaPierre, did not impress Cox while he was at ILA. Cox warned LaPierre that Arulanandam had “terrible” political judgment and was “lazy in core competencies.”
LaPierre ignored Cox’s warnings and kept Arulanandam on, promoting him to higher positions, eventually setting him up to take over as EVP and CEO upon LaPierre’s resignation.
This has laid the table for a bit of a battle within the NRA Board of Directors. It has been reported that Tom King, who has been one of LaPierre’s chief supporters on the Board and a close ally of NRA President Charles Cotton, has been calling fellow Directors to urge them to support a move to put Cotton in the EVP position.
Along with his duties as President, Cotton serves as the Chairman of the NRA’s Audit Committee, as I explained in a recent article, “Charles Cotton Must Never Be Allowed to Head the NRA!”. The Audit Committee is supposed to be the Association’s watchdog tasked with ensuring that the staff and vendors always operate within applicable laws and policies and conduct business in a manner that is above reproach.
Cotton served as vice chair of the committee for several years and then switched places with then-chairman David Coy. Between the two of them, they have been Chair and Vice Chair for the past 20-plus years, and they continue in those positions now, even though they’ve been President and Vice President of the Board for the past three years. Cotton and Coy were supposed to keep the NRA on track and away from even a whisper of corruption.
They failed spectacularly in that assignment and were rewarded for their failure by being elected to the offices of President and Vice President.
The best way for the NRA Board to demonstrate that they’ve learned nothing at all from the scandals and corruption that have plagued the NRA for the past 20 years and been publicly known for the past five years would be to hand the EVP position to Charles Cotton.
The trial continues on Monday with video testimony from former NRA President Carolyn Meadows. Ms. Meadows has been excused from testifying in person – or even via live video link – due to her own health issues, so her video deposition is being played.
It’s worth noting that Ms. Meadows’ health has been a limiting factor since she was first elected in 2019. She barely attended any Board meetings as President after she was elected, meaning that First Vice President Charles Cotton filled in for her for almost all of her two terms. He then served two terms as President himself, then orchestrated a Bylaws change to allow him to serve a third (effectively fifth) term as President.
In spite of her age and poor health concerns, Ms. Meadows has been nominated for reelection to the Board in the coming election…. She and another woman from Georgia were both added to the list of nominees after Phil Journey, Rocky Marshall, Dennis Fusaro, and I (Jeff Knox) were qualified by petition as nominees. Some speculate she and her friend were added to pad the field and make it even harder for any of the four reform candidates to be elected.
Ballots should be in the March issue of NRA magazines, which will hit mailboxes around mid-February, so please be sure to vote and encourage your NRA friends to vote. “Bullet voting,” i.e. voting for just the four Outsider Candidates for NRA Board, myself included, and no one else, gives us the best chance of winning seats, so please spread the word on that, too.
Federal investigators asked banks to scour customer transactions for terms like ‘Trump’ or ‘MAGA’ and purchases at stores including Dick’s Sporting Goods and Bass Pro Shops after the Capitol riot, shocking Republican probe claims
- Federal officials investigating Jan. 6 asked banks to filter through customer transactions including key terms like ‘MAGA’ and ‘Trump’
- The government has been ‘watching’ Americans who frequent Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s and other outdoors stores that sell guns
- The Treasury Department also warned banks of ‘extremism’ indicators like the purchase of a religious text, like a Bible
- Top Republican Jim Jordan says the transactions have ‘no apparent criminal nexus’ and is demanding information from Treasury
Federal investigators asked U.S. banks to scour customer transactions for key terms like ‘MAGA’ and ‘Trump’ to identify ‘extremism’ in the aftermath of January 6, shocking details uncovered by Republicans reveal.
According to bombshell documents obtained by the House’s ‘weaponization’ committee led by Chairman Jim Jordan, the federal government has been ‘watching’ Americans who frequent outdoor stores that sell guns – or who are religious.
Treasury Department officials suggested that banks review transactions at sporting and recreational supplies stores like Cabela’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Bass Pro Shops in order ‘to detect customers whose transactions may reflect ‘potential active shooters.”
Federal investigators suggested that banks use search terms like ‘MAGA’ and ‘Trump’ to identify purchased that could be associated with ‘extremism’ 
Transportation charges for travel to areas with no apparent purpose could be an indicator of ‘extremism,’ according to the letter
Subscriptions to news outlets containing ‘extremist’ views would also be an indicator for financial instructions to look at, according to the material the Treasury provided to banks.
‘Did you shop at Bass Pro Shop yesterday or purchase a Bible? If so, the federal government may be watching you,’ Jordan posted on X.
‘We now know the federal government flagged terms like ‘MAGA’ and ‘TRUMP,’ to financial institutions if Americans completed transactions using those terms,’ he wrote in another post. ‘What was also flagged? If you bought a religious text, like a BIBLE, or shopped at Bass Pro Shop.’
The federal officials may have illegally provided financial institutions with suggested search terms for ‘identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement,’ said Jordan.
DailyMail.com reached out to the Treasury Department for comment.
Jordan is also demanding information from a Treasury official, Noah Bishoff, after the alarming documents came to light.
‘Despite these transactions having no apparent criminal nexus — and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights — [the Treasury] seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors,’ Jordan wrote.
Purchases from Bass Pro Shops could also be an indicator of extremism
The committee also obtained documents indicating officials suggested that banks query purchases with keywords such as ‘Dick’s Sporting Goods’
‘This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious doubts about [the Treasury’s] respect for fundamental liberties.’
‘In other words, [the Treasury] urged large financial instructions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression,’ said the committee’s letter to Bishoff.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday called the revelation ‘yet another glaring example of the weaponized federal government targeting conservatives.’
Republicans are also requesting that Bishoff appear before the committee for a transcribed interview by January 31.
On Wednesday, State Senator Julie Morrison, the Majority Caucus Whip, introduced legislation that could result in Illinois gun owners’ losing their driver’s licenses without due process, less than two weeks after 2 million Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card holders rebelled and chose not to register their firearms in protest of Gov. Pritzker’s assault weapons ban that he signed into law last January.
In a video statement released on Thursday evening, Illinois State Rifle Association president Doug Mayhall said, “Now the anti-gun legislators are coming after your Driver’s License!”
Mayhall went on to explain Senate Bill 2720, which “proposes that when a FOID card is revoked – and the FOID card holder does not comply with Section 9.5 of the FOID Act by surrendering their FOID card to authorities – the gun owner may not be issued a driver’s license; renew a driver’s license; retain a drivers license; or be issued a permit to drive under the Illinois Vehicle Code.”
The legislation also requires the Illinois State Police to notify the Secretary of State’s office and report anyone that fails to comply with Section 9.5.
But the issue is more troublesome than simply having your FOID card revoked according to Mayhall.
“Under the Red Flag Law – there can be an ex parte case filed against you. In other words, someone can say you are a problem and go before a judge without you present. You then can lose your FOID card and not get a hearing for at least two weeks.
So what’s the bottom line here? A person under this bill can be falsely accused and lose their right to drive without a single hearing.”
The loss of a driver’s license can have serious implications, and it has the potential of completely disrupting one’s livelihood – including someone’s ability to get to and from work.
The timing of the legislation to coincide with the January 1st deadline of Illinois’ gun registry and the one year anniversary of the assault weapons ban is not accidental, as Mayhall pointed out.
“After Governor Pritzker was left embarrassed when less than 2 percent of the 2.4 million FOID Card holders registered their firearms by the January 1st deadline, he’s now looking for new ways to target and harass gun owners.”
The legislation is awaiting a committee assignment, and the Democrats maintain a comfortable 40-19 supermajority in the state Senate.
And yes my family did NOT ride for Mr. Lincoln! Grumpy
*The Pottawatomie massacre occurred on the night of May 24–25, 1856, in the Kansas Territory. In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces on May 21, and the telegraphed news of the severe attack on May 22 on Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, for speaking out against slavery in Kansas (“The Crime Against Kansas”), John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers—some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles—made a violent reply. Just north of Pottawatomie Creek, in Franklin County, they killed five pro-slavery settlers, in front of their families. This soon became the most famous of the many violent episodes of the “Bleeding Kansas” period, during which a state-level civil war in the Kansas Territory was described as a “tragic prelude” to the American Civil War which soon followed. “Bleeding Kansas” involved conflicts between pro- and anti-slavery settlers over whether the Kansas Territory would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. It is also John Brown’s most questionable act, both to his friends and his enemies. In the words of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, it was “a terrible remedy for a terrible malady.”[1]: 371
Background[edit]
John Brown was particularly affected by the sacking of Lawrence, in which the Douglas County Sheriff Samuel Jones on May 21st led a posse that destroyed the presses and type of the Kansas Free State and the Herald of Freedom, Kansas’s two abolitionist newspapers, the fortified Free State Hotel, and the house of Charles Robinson. He was the free-state militia commander-in-chief and leader of the “free state” government, established in opposition to the “bogus” pro-slavery territorial government, based in Lecompton.
A Douglas County grand jury had ordered the attack because the hotel “had been used as a fortress” and an “arsenal” the previous winter, and the “seditious” newspapers were indicted because “they had urged the people to resist the enactments passed” by the territorial governor.[2] The violence against abolitionists was accompanied by celebrations in the pro-slavery press, with writers such as Dr. John H Stringfellow of the Squatter Sovereign proclaiming that pro-slavery forces “are determined to repel this Northern invasion and make Kansas a Slave State; though our rivers should be covered with the blood of their victims and the carcasses of the Abolitionists should be so numerous in the territory as to breed disease and sickness, we will not be deterred from our purpose.”[3]: 162
Brown was outraged by both the violence of pro-slavery forces and by what he saw as a weak and cowardly response by the anti-slavery partisans and the Free State settlers, whom he described as “cowards, or worse”.[3]: 163–166 In addition, two days before this massacre, Brown learned about the caning of abolitionist Charles Sumner by the pro-slavery Preston Brooks on the floor of Congress.[4][5][full citation needed]
Attack[edit]
 |
This section needs additional citations for verification. (May 2013)
|
A Free State company under the command of John Brown Jr. set out, and the Osawatomie company joined them. On the morning of May 22, 1856, they heard of the sack of Lawrence and the arrest of Deitzler, Brown, and Jenkins. However, they continued their march toward Lawrence, not knowing whether their assistance might still be needed, and encamped that night near the Ottawa Creek. They remained in the vicinity until the afternoon of May 23, at which time they decided to return home.
On May 23, John Sr. selected a party to go with him on a private expedition. John Jr. objected to their leaving his company, but seeing that his father was obdurate, acquiesced, telling him to “do nothing rash.” The company consisted of John Brown, four of his sons—Frederick, Owen, Salmon, and Oliver—Thomas Wiener, and James Townsley (who claimed later that he had been forced by Brown to participate in the incident), whom John had induced to carry the party in his wagon to their proposed field of operations.
Letter of Mahala Doyle to John Brown, when he was in jail awaiting execution, November 20, 1859: “Altho vengence is not mine, I confess, that I do feel gratified to hear that you ware stopt in your fiendish career at Harper’s Ferry, with the loss of your two sons, you can now appreciate my distress, in Kansas, when you then and there entered my house at midnight and arrested my husband and two boys and took them out of the yard and in cold blood shot them dead in my hearing, you cant say you done it to free our slaves, we had none and never expected to own one, but has only made me a poor disconsolate widow with helpless children while I feel for your folly. I do hope & trust that you will meet your just reward. O how it pained my Heart to hear the dying groans of my Husband and children if this scrawl give you any consolation you are welcome to it.
NB [postscript] my son John Doyle whose life I begged of (you) is now grown up and is very desirous to be at Charleston [Charles Town] on the day of your execution would certainly be there if his means would permit it, that he might adjust the rope around your neck if Gov. Wise would permit it.”[6]
They encamped that night between two deep ravines on the edge of the timber, some distance to the right of the main traveled road. There they remained unobserved until the following evening of May 24. Some time after dark, the party left their place of hiding and proceeded on their “secret expedition”. Late in the evening, they called at the house of James P. Doyle and ordered him and his two adult sons, William and Drury, to go with them as prisoners. (Doyle’s 16-year-old son, John, who was not a member of the pro-slavery Law and Order Party, was spared after his mother pleaded for his life.) The three men were escorted by their captors out into the darkness, where Owen Brown and his brother Frederick killed them with broadswords. John Brown Sr. did not participate in the stabbing but fired a shot into the head of the fallen James Doyle to ensure he was dead.
Brown and his band then went to the house of Allen Wilkinson and ordered him out. He was slashed and stabbed to death by Henry Thompson and Theodore Wiener, possibly with help from Brown’s sons.[3]: 172–173 From there, they crossed the Pottawatomie, and some time after midnight, forced their way into the cabin of James Harris at swordpoint. Harris had three house guests: John S. Wightman, Jerome Glanville, and William Sherman, the brother of Henry Sherman (“Dutch Henry”), a militant pro-slavery activist. Glanville and Harris were taken outside for interrogation and asked whether they had threatened Free State settlers, aided Border Ruffians from Missouri, or participated in the sack of Lawrence. Satisfied with their answers, Brown’s men let Glanville and Harris return to the cabin. William Sherman, however, was led to the edge of the creek and hacked to death with swords by Wiener, Thompson, and Brown’s sons.[3]: 177
Having learned at Harris’s cabin that “Dutch Henry”, their main target in the expedition, was away from home on the prairie, they ended the expedition and returned to the ravine where they had previously encamped. They rejoined the Osawatomie company on the night of May 25.[3][page needed]
In the two years prior to the massacre, there had been eight killings in Kansas Territory attributable to slavery politics, and none in the vicinity of the massacre. Brown killed five in a single night, and the massacre was the match to the powder keg that precipitated the bloodiest period in “Bleeding Kansas” history, a three-month period of retaliatory raids and battles in which 29 people died.[7]
Men killed during the massacre[edit]
- James Doyle and his sons William and Drury
- Allen Wilkinson
- William Sherman
Impact[edit]
The Potawattomie massacre was called by William G. Cutler, author of the History of the State of Kansas (1883), the “crowning horror” of the whole Bleeding Kansas period. “The news of the horrid affair spread rapidly over the Territory, carrying with it a thrill of horror, such as the people, used as they had become to deeds of murder, had not felt before. …The news of the event had a deeper significance than appeared in the abstract atrocity of the act itself. …It meant that the policy of extermination or abject submission, so blatantly promulgated by the Pro-slavery press, and proclaimed by Pro-slavery speakers, had been adopted by their enemies, and was about to be enforced with appalling earnestness. It meant that there was a power opposed to the Pro-slavery aggressors, as cruel and unrelenting as themselves. It meant henceforth, swift retaliation—robbery for robbery—murder for murder— that “he who taketh the sword shall perish by the sword.”[8]
Kansas Senator John James Ingalls in 1884 quoted with approval the judgment of a Free State settler: “He was the only man who comprehended the situation, and saw the absolute necessity for some such blow, and had the nerve to strike it.” This a result of the men killed being leaders in a conspiracy to “drive out, bum and kill; and that Potawatomie Creek was to be cleared of every man, woman and child who was for Kansas being a free State.”[9]
According to Brown’s son Salmon, who participated, it was “the grandest thing that was ever done in Kansas”
