Yesterday at the office we were discussing a topic that’s all over the news feed: the “Dag wedding” (a reference to a high-profile wedding motorcade involving people from Dagestan, a republic in Russia).
http://youtu.be/YaBEGzoQCt0 We decided to put out a special leaflet for mass distribution as part of DMP. Something like the one we did on housing and utilities. Once again, so it’s clear what is and is not hooliganism: Arguments like “but they’ve already been fined for shooting in an unauthorized place”* are completely unconvincing and legally untenable. Here is how Arkady Babchenko puts it, quite typically: The conclusion a person capable of thinking draws from that information is: they did not shoot at people. Article 20.13 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses, “Discharging a weapon in areas not designated for that purpose,” carries a fine of 2,000 to 5,000 rubles (roughly $20–$50) with confiscation. That’s it. Period.* No, not period. If I have a traumatic pistol (a less-lethal handgun firing rubber bullets) and, wanting to show it to a friend, I fire a couple of shots in the courtyard, then yes, that falls under Article 20.13. Or if I have a shotgun and I’m itching to shoot, but can’t be bothered to go to a shooting range, so I head to a vacant lot or an industrial area and start shooting at bottles. That’s the kind of thing people should be fined for and stripped of their gun licenses. That is discharging a weapon in an unauthorized place. But if a group of people at a wedding are firing from cars — into the air or toward other cars, toward those who overtook their motorcade (not even necessarily at the cars themselves, but in their direction) — that is a completely different matter. What is the shooters’ intent aimed at? to show how tough we are to show how untough everyone else is to show that “nothing will happen to us” to flaunt their favorite proud slogan, “where there are Dagis, there’s trouble” to scare everyone around them and laugh at their fear All of this is, in the purest form, a “gross violation of public order expressing blatant disrespect for society”* — that is, hooliganism. Whether this is an administrative or criminal offense should be determined by the proper authorities. In my opinion: if they were shooting only in the Moscow suburbs and only into the air, just to observe some stupid pseudo-tradition, then it’s an administrative matter; if the version that they were shooting in the direction of other people and cars is confirmed, then it is, of course, a criminal one. It is precisely the Dagestani community that should be demanding most strongly that these hooligans be held accountable.