Jim Cooley cares deeply about freedom. And safety. Which is why he travels to Atlanta’s airport carrying an AR-15 with a 90-round drum magazine. But why can’t he do that without cops politely following him at a safe distance? Isn’t this America?

Cooley—who loves constitutionally guaranteed rights, like the right to run Muslims out of town (more on that below)—is incensed that merely dropping off his very embarrassed-looking daughter last week at Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport with the loaded long-gun at the ready was enough to arouse the interest of a few peace officers.

Fortunately, Cooley videotaped this outrage. Take a look at this abuse of power, this bald harassment, this teenaged daughter just wishing Dad would shut up already:

“I’m just curious,” an amused-sounding fire marshal asks Cooley in the terminal, “do you have a permit or what, what’s going on?”

“You’re not even allowed to ask me,” Cooley retorts. “You’re not even allowed to ask me for any ID... What you should probably do is go check with the airport policy, okay, and then you’ll understand that you shouldn’t even have approached me.”

“Okay,” the marshal says. “What I’m gonna do is get TSA and get them to try to handle it. I’m not trying to tell you to put it up or anything, I’m just curious. I’ve never seen a gun, somebody walking around with a gun inside of the airport. So that’s why I’m—”

“So you think that it’s not allowed!” Cooley says in disgust.

“I don’t know, sir,” the marshal laughs. “See, that’s all I’m doing.”

Cooley, whose wife can be seen comforting his just-trying-to-pretend-this-isn’t happening daughter, complained to local media that the abuse continued in the parking lot as he left, with a few cops keeping an eye on him:

“Can I ask why you’re following me?” Cooley asks a police officer nearby.

“Just making sure there are no problems, sir,” she says as she walks past him, her back turned.

“Are you saying you suspect me of causing a problem?” he yells toward her back, as she’s 15 feet away and opening up the distance. He diligently rounds up the three police officers and demands their names and badge numbers, which they give. He then complains, on the video that he’s recording of the police officers whose identities he just obtained, that they’re following him and photographing him. “That’s not illegal,” one tells him.

“It’s considered harassment!” Cooley says.

“We haven’t said anything to you,” the officer responds. “You approached us!”

Cooley knows that freedom is a right, not a privilege. That’s according to the shirt he’s wearing in this video of him getting arrested at a 2014 gun protest, and it’s consistent with this video of him “Getting escorted out of the WINDER CITY COUNCIL MEETING,” as well as this video of him “Messing with a cop while getting a ticket for NO LICENSE PLATES.” These and more messages of freedom and liberty can be found on Cooley’s YouTube page, alongside the video of him successfully fighting for “NO MOSQUE IN KENNESAW GEORGIA...GOD BLESS AMERICA.”

Because, see, if there’s one thing Cooley can’t stand as he presses his right to to say and carry whatever without all these eyes on him, it’s dirty Muslims and “the scumbag lawyer for the terrorist org” who tried to slide a temporary place of worship into the local mall, right under Cooley’s freedom-defending ammo belt. What part of “land of the free” don’t you understand?

Contact the author at adam@gawker.com.
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