James Phillips
A Tennessee man was arrested in Kentucky after reportedly pulling a gun on a man at a Sam’s Club in Bowling Green, Kentucky, because he and his wife were wearing MAGA hats.
According to the police report, 57-year-old James Phillips was wearing a “veterans hat” inside a local Sam’s Club when he passed the couple wearing “Make America Great Again” hats.
According to WBKO in Bowling Green, the incident took place Saturday, when a man identified as James Phillips allegedly accosted a Trump supporter named Terry Pierce because Pierce was wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap.
Pierce told police he wasn’t backing down.
“I have as much right to wear that hat and support my country and my president as he has not to,” he said, according to WBKO.
That’s when things reportedly got more dangerous.
Pierce, who was with his wife at the time of the confrontation, told WBKO that Phillips “pulled a .40 caliber out and stuck it in my face, backed up and said, ‘It’s a good day for you to die.’”
The response Pierce said he gave is one for the books:
“I said, ‘Then pull the trigger. Put the gun down and fight me or pull the trigger. Whichever one you want,’” he told WBKO. “And he backed up and he said it again, he said, ‘It’s a good day for you to die.’”
Pierce said Phillips backed down and left, but Pierce followed him to his car.
Terry Pierce
“I went out the front of the store to confront him again and that’s when I got him in his car. He couldn’t leave because his mother was still in the store. And we were having a verbal altercation outside,” Pierce told WBKO.
According to WNKY in Bowling Green, police were called to the scene by witnesses who reported seeing a man pull a gun on a couple.
WNKY reported that Phillips said he’d only made an obscene gesture with his finger at the couple because of the MAGA hats.
“He tried telling me I assaulted him and I said, ‘I never touched you,’” Pierce told WBKO.
According to the station, a surveillance camera captured an altercation between the two men, but does not show Phillips with the gun because he was backing out of the camera’s range.
However, according to WBKO, the police report states Phillips had a Glock .40 in his back pocket with a round in the chamber and two more magazines in another pocket. The station reported Phillips has a concealed carry license in Tennessee, which is honored Kentucky.
Police said witnesses corroborated Pierce’s claims that Phillips pulled a gun on him.
Phillips was arrested on a first-degree wanton endangerment charge and booked at Warren County Regional Jail.