A Reno, Nevada man who heard on talk radio that a bar was flying a Mexican flag above a U.S. flag decided to take matters into his own hands, marching up to the business with a 7-inch knife and cutting down both flags. “I’m a veteran; I’m not going to see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men, and they need to come and fight us. But I want somebody to fight me for this flag,” Jim Broussard declared before stalking off with the U.S. flag. KRNV TV happened to be there to record the episode:
While the local TV anchor asserted that positioning the U.S. flag below the Mexican flag “is, in fact, illegal,” that is not the case. The federal code includes protocol for display and treatment of the national flag by civilians, but as the courts have made clear, these rules are not mandatory and cannot be enforced, as they would violate the First Amendment. The city of Reno issued a statement reiterating this. PFAW has more resources on “flag desecration” and the effort to amend the Constitution to ban it.
Cutting down and taking someone else’s flag, on the other hand, does not seem to be a constitutionally protected activity, but rather destruction of property.
Broussard later appeared on a talk radio show to clarify that the fundamental issue for him was what host Mike Gallagher called “the Hispanification of the United States.” Said Broussard:
I feel there’s a lot of this turning our heads on things in concern to the Hispanic community and the things they do. They seem impervious to our laws in a lot of situations. …
[Illegal immigrants] are renegades. All they seem to be interested in is to disrupt the tempo, make as many babies as possible, anchor babies, disrupt our financial situation in this country by abusing our medical systems and abusing their rights, or lack thereof, for our monies in many different situations.
