A group of patriotic truck drivers have a message for the rioters, looters, and arsonists of America: we will not be held hostage.
The viral Facebook post has been shared more than 90,000 times:
DEAR AMERICA, WE ARE SERIOUS...
THE AMERICAN TRUCKER will not be held hostage, threatened, robbed, or killed. We will not be a victim. We will not be this generation's version of Reginald Denny. Every driver knows that name. Do you?
We will defend ourselves everytime, up to and including, using our 80,000lb trucks and it's 1,800 foot-pounds of torque to run you over.
Cities where looting, rioting, and stopping trucks is happening.... You are hereby put on notice.
Threaten, delay, attempt to stop a truck, we... The American trucker will consider that act as an attack on our lives. We will defend ourselves, our equipment, and our load.
Food, medicine, hospital supplies, gasoline, and a million other daily items we deliver to your cities ARE A-POLITICAL. Everyone needs them, including your dumbass. We don't "need" to come to your lawless city. YOU NEED us to deliver your food and supplies to your city.
We drivers have social media too. If your city becomes too chaotic and violent. Becomes too unsafe for us... Word will spread very quickly among the 3.5 million truckers. We will stop delivering to your city. Period. No driver will travel into a city that reminds us of scenes from a "Mad Max" movie.
Threaten an American truck driver while he's working and it will take you, and your city, down a path where YOU WILL LOSE.
Take a moment and seriously think: Do you really want to risk your doctor NOT having the supplies he needs to save you while in surgery? Do you really want to stop the medicines keeping your kids and parents alive?
Keep your silly shit off the US Interstate and US highway system. Congregating in the roadway will only get you run over. Having people standing and blocking the highway is a threat to our physical safety and we will respond appropriately to your attack. Standing in the roadway is NOT a protest. It is an attack on our safety. Air horns will sound, steering wheels will be held tightly, but those brakes will not be touched. You will move, or you will die. 80,000 pounds at 70mph will win every time. STAY OUT OF THE ROADWAY.
It sounds like the people who wrote this message are old enough to remember the story of Reginald Denny and the LA Riots.