Nebraska state Sen. Ernie Chambers compared U.S. police to Islamic State terrorists and added that if he carried a weapon, he’d use it on a cop.
“My ISIS is the police,” Chambers said during a Friday legislative hearing.
“I wouldn’t go to Syria, I wouldn’t go to Iraq, I wouldn’t go to Afghanistan, I wouldn’t go to Yemen, I wouldn’t go to Tunisia, I wouldn’t go to Lebanon, I wouldn’t go to Jordan, I would do it right here,” he added. “Nobody from ISIS ever terrorized us as a people as the police do us daily.”
Nebraska Watchdog recorded the lawmaker’s statements and uploaded the audio to their website.
Chambers wasn’t done ranting at that point. He added that if he carried a firearm, he would shoot a cop.
“If I was going to carry a weapon, it wouldn’t be against you, it wouldn’t be against these people who come here that I might have a dispute with. Mine would be for the police,” Chambers said. “And if I carried a gun I’d want to shoot him first and then ask questions later, like they say the cop ought to do.”
On Tuesday, Chambers walked back his comments a little.
“I don’t carry a weapon. I’ve never carried a weapon,” he added. “But if I were in the situation that some people are in…if you’re going to follow the rule available to cops, just shoot somebody and come up with an alibi.”
Chambers also emphasized that he was “not advocating that anybody, especially anybody in my community, go out and shoot people,” but was merely comparing recent police shootings to actions taken by the Islamic State.
This isn’t even Chambers’ first inflammatory comment. In early February, he claimed all white people are racist and accused them of polluting his blood.
Watchdog added that Chambers’ “most outrageous comments are rarely covered by Nebraska media — in part because he’s been making them for years.”
Compare that to media outlets like the Huffington Post’s breathless coverage of every outrageous comment or non-liberal opinion by a state GOP lawmaker. Just Google “Huffington Post Republican Lawmaker” for a list of examples in the past month.
Chambers is often labeled as an Independent, but in 1988 he ran for the U.S. Senate as a member of the New Alliance Party, a left-wing group once investigated by the FBI, which cautioned that members “should be considered armed and dangerous.”
