TAKE THE SHOT...

A phrase once reserved for snipers and photographers, now blurred beyond recognition.

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This image is no accident. It's theater. It's a warning. The look in the agent’s eyes is not fear. It’s performance. The weapon is real, but its purpose isn’t immediate violence, he is using it to demonstrate his dominance and the expectation that one day he WILL get to shoot you or someone just like you.

This is how authoritarian regimes test the line. This photo will cross someone's desk that's important, but because the agent is wearing a mask in an unmarked vehicle, they can say it didn't happen and it doesn't matter.

Don't you fucking believe that for a second.

It does matter. This is how they do it, they don't cross the Rubicon all at once. They stare at you from the edge. Then like the Weeping Angels, you look away, distracted by some other travesty of our current government and when you look back, they are right next to you and you never saw them move.

Now he is right in front of you, not theory, fact. He knows you're filming it and he doesn't care. That’s why he’s doing it. He wants you to know that you could be the next Crispus Attucks. The catalyst for the war they want so badly they can almost taste it.

We are fast approaching the day when “take the shot” will mean both things at once.

One click of the shutter.

One twitch of the trigger.

And the nation will be forced to pick a side, not by ideology, but by who gets to be safe when they raise a camera.

I say to you again:

“If you’re not ready to die for the shot, don’t take it. That Pulitzer won’t save you. But it will look nice on your parents’ mantle — right next to the urn with your ashes in it.”