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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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January 16, 2003
Aw come on, it's just one little storage locker
Holy crap! BATF officers have busted a guy in Arizona with a big stash of firepower. The owner's arrest record apparently consists of a previous charge of illegally owning a machine gun and a silencer. Whoop de frickin' doo! Somebody pass me the smelling salts.
Here's the money quote from the CNN story: "The ATF spokesman said there is no indication at this time that the weapons have anything to do with terrorism."
Why would someone even say that? Lots of people have lots of guns. There are millions of guns in this country, only a couple of which have been used in terrorist acts in the US in the last couple of years. One of them for the schmuck at LAX, and the DC snipers. Maybe a couple more incidents might be so classified, none involving large caches of weapons.
Apparently the presumption is that if you have guns or at least if you have more than a couple, then you are BAD, and ready to kill bunches of people. This doesn't particularly have much to do with reality.
Maybe it's not completely unreasonable to have some laws about major explosives, grenade launchers and such, at least to the point of regulating safe storage. The right to keep and bear arms shouldn't be presumed to include stashing dangerous explosives anonymously in a public area storage locker where they could blow up in a random fire or some such. Even I would go that far. I suppose you might confiscate some overly powerful munitions and write the guy a ticket.
However, calling out the press to come take pictures, and sending out spokesmen to tell us how "frightening" these weapons are and talk about terrorism is a bunch of nonsense. It's cheap aggrandizement. The guy didn't have nukes, or chemical weapons, and seemingly no indication of wicked intent. It looks like some guns, maybe a couple of grenade launchers. That certainly doesn't frighten me. If you do find guns "frightening" then perhaps you shouldn't be working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; that's what this agency deals with every day.
posted by Al at 1/16/2003 10:46:00 PM
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