(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) In a legal system overrun with wokeness and a penchant for punishing anyone who challenges its orthodoxy, an Alabama gun shop owner provided a recent victory for liberty and commonsense.
Nathan Kirk, 44, apparently is not a huge fan of President Joe Biden and has a slick sense of humor. When Kirk registered his F-250 pickup, he decided to pay a few extra bucks to get a vanity plate, choosing “LGBF JB” at a time when the “Let’s Go Brandon! F-Joe Biden” wave was cresting.
When Kirk’s plate arrived in January, he put it on his pickup truck and continued on his way, thinking everything was fine.
And it was, until somebody from the Alabama Motor Vehicle Division caught on to the meaning of Kirk’s plate, or somebody complained to the authorities about it.
Whatever the case, Kirk received a letter from the Alabama MVD.
“Somebody is a little triggered by it and they want me to turn it in,” Kirk told NewsMax at the time.
A little bit triggered, indeed; state bureaucrats informed him that the “license plate contains objectionable language which is considered by the Department to be offensive to the peace and dignity of the State of Alabama.”
Having deemed it a grave threat, the state demanded the plate’s immediate return in no less than 10 days and threatened Kirk with revoking his registration, fines and further marks on his driver’s record.
Kirk was not impressed.
“I’m not going to send it back,” he said.
“They can come and take it if they’d like,” Kirk vowed. “But that’s about the only way they’re going to get it.”
Turns out Kirk was prophetic and this week, after receiving a backlash from conservative legislators and an outpouring of outrage from the public after NewsMax and One America News took the story national, state bureaucrats relented and informed Kirk that he could keep his license plate. They even issued an apology, reported AL.com.
“The Alabama Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division, has determined the above referenced license plate will not be recalled,” the department wrote. “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”
While it’s commendable that Kirk stood up for his rights and prevailed, it’s equally troubling to think that somebody else might have had their free speech cancelled by some woke activist posing as a government agent.
