Standard Mischief

I was wandering around the web last night, and ended up on the Second Amendment Foundation’s website. Lo and behold, there on the front page was that sooper-seekrit New Orleans judgment (and some supporting documents, all of which are PDFs). You know, the one that the NRA didn’t want you to see. The one that only got handed over to a handful of bloggers, festooned with, according to Publicola, a “Not For Publication” on the copy.

The Second Amendment Foundation is the NRA’s co-plaintive in the suit.

So I’m reading over the “top secret” thing, and I’m scratching my head. What exactly was in this thing that the NRA didn’t want me to see? (I blogged earlier, saying I was gonna call the membership line and ask for a copy of the judgment myself. That never happened, I never did find my lifer card).

The only thing I can see that the NRA might not want their rank-and-file to know about would be this (page 16):

NRA has a long record of representing the interests of its members in civil litigation, and its standing to do so is well recognized.18 An association may challenge a firearm ban on behalf of its members. Peoples Rights Organization, supra, 152 F.3d at 526-27. An association may have standing even though “it is not possible to state with certainty which of the members in the plaintiffs’ associations will be harmed.” American Maritime Assn v. Blumenthal, 458 F. Supp. 849, 855 (D. D.C. 1977), aff?d 590 F.2d 1156 (D.C. Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 943.19

You see, the NRA was widely criticized for not jumping in right away and filing a suit. I myself blogged, “… when the seize orders came down, and enough members called the NRA, they finally issued a wishy-washy press statement…”, yet in their own pleading, they claim they had every right to file suit, even if they are unsure which of their members were harmed. They do, however, seem to have waited until they could get a Mr. Buell Teel on board with them. Whether or not that was a wise move on their part, I’m not going to say, as I am not a lawyer.

Please feel free to chime in and let everyone know if you have an idea of why the NRA acted the way they did.

Readers may wonder why I’m being such a hard-ass on the NRA, each and every time I blog about them. To answer that question, I’ll have to relate an incident that happened during the few weeks the “Beltway Sniper(s)” were on the loose.

The “sniper taskforce” that was assembled was still going on the “crazy white guy” in the white box truck or van theory. Two fellow Maryland gun owners (both of which owned a AR-15s, and both of which had to pass the Maryland “background check” before taking possession, after purchase) told me that they had their firearms seized by the police for “ballistic fingerprinting”. In this case, however, there was no report in the Mainstream Media, no stunning Ken Wayne videos, and hence no nationwide call to the NRA from its members. I have to assume that the police were going down the list of all the AR-15 firearms that were registered during the “7 day, or however long it takes until we get back to you” waiting period that is the law in Maryland, and rounding all those guns up. To this day, unless you personally, know a Maryland gun owner, I’m willing to bet you have never heard this part of the “sniper” saga.

Maryland gun owners did, as far as I know, receive their firearms back, but that’s not the point. They were seized without probable cause, and without a warrant. Whatever records were recorded from the seized firearms would seem to be “fruit of the poison tree”, and therefore inadmissible, but I bet the data is still in the local police possession.

Remember the delay by the NRA in the New Orleans case? Were they waiting to see the reactions of their members’ The NRA should not have to be chided into defending our rights. That’s exactly what I pay them for.

Update 2005-28-11: Here’s a cite for the gun seizures back in October 2002, during the “Beltway Sniper Incident”

Gun Week is a Second Amendment Foundation publication.

“People with white vans and box trucks aren’t the only ones who had problems. There have been repeated reports by individuals and in some media of law enforcement contacting people who own .223-caliber rifles, as determined from gun shop Form 4473 records.

“The Times also reported that authorities checked gun shops, ranges and gunowners in hopes of turning up some kind of lead. ATF agents and local police phoned or visited gunowners at home or work. There were verifiable reports of police taking rifles for test-firing experiments, and later returning them.

“But just being a gunowner in that area became a cause for special concern.

“The Times also reported that ATF agents confiscated the sign-in log for the prior six-month period from at least one range, apparently not just for a list of names, but in order to obtain handwriting specimens.”

Well, I kinda feel a little funny sending in a protest letter to Wal*Mart using a pen name, but I told myself that it’s important. No use having a BUYcott (or a boycott for that matter) if the target is left clueless. Since I didn’t see a pallet of Winchester ?white box? last Saturday , I suppose we all ought to go to Wal*Mart’s feedback page and send them a little reminder. Let’s make absolutely sure. Here’s mine:

To whom it may concern:

I am a blogger on the internet. My website is http://standardmischief.com/ and I blog under a pseudonym. I am also a (mostly) satisfied Wal*Mart customer. As you may or may not know, many firearms enthusiasts on the web celebrate every November 19 with something called National Ammo Day (http://ammoday.com/). This year many of us decided to send you a little hello message. Many of us attempted to buy Winchester brand ?White Box? ammunition as close as possible to 3:30 PM Central time (adjusted for each time zone). We trust you noticed. Our reason was twofold.

The first reason is mostly a reaction to a news story back in 2002. [1] A Wal-Mart employee calls the police after someone buys a thousand rounds of ammo. Although someone actually appears to have been arrested on other charges, we just wanted to let you know that for people who like to shoot, one thousand rounds is just a few days worth of shooting at the range. Nothing to get excited over.

The second reason is a bit more serious. After the Katrina disaster, I was shocked to hear that Wal-Mart, which seem to be supporting relief efforts, actually shut down sales of firearms in 40 stores around the gulf coast [2]. This was unbelievable in the face of all the crime and looting going on in the disaster area. Some little clueless regional manager that works for your company must have thought that would keep guns out of the hands of the lawless. While the looters looted, rescue worker who have never before needed to defend themselves while doing their jobs could not equip themselves at your stores. Homeowners that always thought the police would be able to protect them were unable to purchase what they needed to keep themselves safe. Totally unacceptable.

I suppose it never occurred to whomever made this particularly poor decision that any purchasers who might have tried to buy a firearm would still have to pass a federal background check. That’s the law of the land. Zero looters were denied a firearm by this policy. Thousands of your loyal customers from throughout the country were surprised and shocked by this policy.

Here is a particularly weasely quote from your spokesperson [2]:

?…A Wal-Mart spokeswoman, Karen Burk, attributed the company’s decision to pull guns from the shelves to ‘’some very fluid circumstances and changing situations” in the region. She did not elaborate far beyond that. ”We’re trying to take care of our customers and community and be a responsible retailer at the same time,” Burk said…?

I’m planning to publish this letter on my website. I’m hoping to hear back from you and share your response with my readers.

Sincerely,

Standard Mischief

[1] http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2005/10/blog-post.html
[2] http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2005/09/11/halted_gun_sales_infuriate_customers/

So, to my readers, if anyone else participated with an ammo purchase this week, even if it wasn?t exactly on the dot on Saturday, and you feel you didn?t get credit, you are more than welcome to post it here. And just because no one has yet (to my knowledge at least) started a massive reciprocal trackback post, I?ll do that here too.

If you have blogged about ammo day, your purchase on ammo day (or ammo week), or your letter to Wal*Mart, and you send a trackback ping to this post in the next two weeks, I’ll trackback to your blog. Just to keep it honest on my part, I’m confessing right now that this idea is about 50% ?get the message out to Wal*Mart?, 10% curiosity, and the last 40% shameless self promotion.

Please trackback ping to http://standardmischief.com/2005/11/23/my-letter-to-walmart-about-the-ammo-buycott/trackback/

Well the first thing I did today had nothing to do with Mall-Wart, I stopped by my friends place of employment. He wasn’t there, so I missed the chance to interview him to see if ammo sales were on the uptick.

The second stop was my favorite used book store. It’s run by the library and takes in all kinds of used books in donations. There’s actually three Heinlein books out there I haven’t read yet, and I got one of ‘em today, along with another softbound and a hardbound Bruce Sterling that I haven’t read yet either. Half a buck for each of the soft and a buck for the hardbound, looks like a first edition in good shape too. Everything there is priced to move.

Orphans of the sky has a 1941 copyright date. My ex-library copy was bought sometime in 2001 and discarded at the latest, this year. I appreciate the chance to buy it cheap but are they going to spend more tax money to buy more Heinlein books in the future? This one is still in great shape.

Anyway books made me late, again. I hit Wal*Mart about a half hour late. The salesdroid could not tell me if they ever stocked 7.62×39, but the only rifle ammo they had left was in 22-250. Not something I shoot. Not much choice left in handgun ammo either. I ended up getting only 1600 rounds, three bricks of .22s (Winchester white box), and a even hundred of Remington skeet loads. Plus I got a brick of clays. This Mall*Wart used to have a great guy behind the counter. He actually knew how to sell you a hunting and fishing license, and he always had the open seasons up there on a whiteboard. Like I said, this guy was a droid.

Note to ammo manufactures: Gun stores inevitably stick the ammo too far behind the counter. If you go somewhere where the salesdroid does not know his stock, Winchester white box is by far the easiest stuff to see. They have obviously thought the Mall-Wart scenario out throughly.

Personally, I prefer to buy my ammo in spam cans.

Oh, something else of note. I use to buy the cheapy Federal skeet loads at Mal-Wart, but when we did a bunch of heavy shooting, all our guns started having failure to eject jams. It seems that those cheapy rock bottom skeet shells that were sold at Mall-Wart a few years ago melted, and started sticking in the chamber under heavy use. My Uncle with the model 12 started to buy Winchester AA shells after that (the hulls of which I happily carted home), I just started to keep my action open between clays to help it cool down, which worked great. The repackaged Federal shells were the same price as the Remington ones this year.

Reason #2978, of why you don’t want to live in DC reared it’s ugly head too. Said droid insisted on seeing my ID, even though I’m clearly over 21. He just wanted to know for sure I didn’t have a DC license. I wonder if my cousin is gonna get caught in that trap next time he goes skeet shooting with me in Virginia? Crazy as it seems, you need a permit to own ammo if you live in DC. Since I look exactly like a gang banger, they had to check. Even if I had a DC license, it should be a legal sale, I just couldn’t legally bring the stuff home. I guess they need to rely on gang bangers in Maryland who can make a straw ammo purchase.

Well, I just got back from a weekend trip on the Appalachian Trail. We did a section called ?The Roller Coaster?, and when we realized we were running out of daylight, we decided to bail short of our goal.

The blazes on this section of trail were pretty poor. I was having a extra bit of problem because all the leaves had recently fallen, and there had yet to be enough traffic to show the trail. When you add to this the (sometimes) misleading blazing and the fading paint on some of the blazes that are spaced entirely too far apart, you have a recipe for disaster by headlight.

Let me send a message out to all you summer maintainers and fair weather blazers. The AT is used more than just in the best of weather. People might be using the trail when the leaves have just fallen or during a rainstorm or they might be trail-breaking in the snow. They might also actually be traveling southbound too.

The only sample of blazing that I have found to be entirely satisfactory is up by Quarry Gap shelter, up in Pennsylvania. The maintainer, Jim Stauch, seems to take great pride in keeping up not only his shelter, but the blazes north and south of it. Not only are the blaze sharp and bright, but he has also painted a darker color around the blazes, where necessary, to make it easy to not get lost in the dark. As far as I know the PATC does actually seem to want to keep people on the trail instead of bushwhacking. Thanks Jim. It was a pleasure hiking your section.

[Picture over at Whiteblaze.net of some unrelated hikers at Jim's shelter. Does not do this nice shelter justice]

Someone right now is saying something about how hard it is, and If I don’t like it, why don’t I pitch in and help. Well, my better blazing rules do slightly conflict with the official PATC’s rules [pdf]. I am, however, planning to do a little freelance “guerrilla” blazing in a particularly extra bonus crappy undisclosed section of the trail.

Standard Mischief’s rules for blazing a trail.

Use the proper paint.

Please try to imagine someone navigating your trail in the dark, in the cold, in new fallen snow, or during a rainstorm. Do you have enough blazes? Are they clearly marked? Ignore any rubbish of keeping the trail “wild”. Half as many blazes isn’t gonna make a difference in the “wildness” of the trail. Remember, you have all those privies, and all those “Hiker Hilton” shelters. I don’t even really care if you paint a stripe from Maine to Georgia (or should I say Georgia to Maine, but then you would have to change all those patches and logos). I just hate unintentionally bushwhacking thanks to someone trying to preserve the wilderness aspect of the trail.

Use offset “Garvey” blazes, except on switchbacks. When you think about it, a Garvey blaze would be easily misinterpreted if seen by someone coming from the other direction.

Mark your switchbacks with a double blaze near the turn. If you mark only some of the switchbacks, don’t be surprised where at the single blaze you have unthoughtfuly provided, people march straight off the trail. Don’t be surprised when they curse at you either. The one place, last weekend, where I cursed the maintainer out, there was actually a trail in the leaves made by other people who made the same mistake I had.

Imagine you are standing at a double blaze. Can you see the next blaze from where you are standing? Remember, the trail that seems obvious to you in the summer, might not be so obvious in inclement weather.

Be particularly careful about the above rule when the trail passes over an area of rocks or scree. Particularly if you have also failed to use the Garvey blazes. I was once walking the trail over an area of dry lunchbox sized rocks. Everyone was walking on the rocks, so there was no trail evident. I hit a non Garvey double blaze and I could not see the next trail marker from where I stood. I only found the trail by dropping my pack to mark the double blaze and hiking around in circles until I found the next blaze. Not fun.

You can’t effectively blaze a trail southbound when you are traveling northbound.

Sometimes the best place to paint a blaze is on a rock. Please remember though that sometimes the rock might be covered with snow.

In rocky country, please consider the use of cairns in addition to blazes.

Obligatory Wikipedia links, in case you have no idea what I’m talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_blazing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Trail

After he left me a comment in my blog, I sent Kevin, over at The Smallest Minority an email that went a little like this:

…Seeing as I don’t think I can talk you out of this non-surprise mass buying project you are involved in, is there any way we can indicate to Wal-mart that our devotion is not 100%. Is there some way we can let Wal-Mart know that we were not pleased that recent converts to the self-defense fold were not allowed to buy a gun to protect themselves? Is there a protest out there that we can both get behind? …

Kevin convinced me that I am swimming against a a very strong current. I agree. So instead of merely canceling out a bit of the protest over at AR15.com, I’ve decided to pull with the crowd.

This is still a protest, however, and Kevin and I agreed that AFTER Ammo Day (Nov 19), After we buy all the white box Winchester ammo off Wal*mart’s shelves, after we demonstrate we are an economic force to be reckoned with, we ought to write Wal*mart a letter letting them know that buying a thousand rounds of ammo is merely a few afternoons worth of fun at the range and that shutting off legal sales to the people who would have passed the NIBC criminal check during the Katrina Disaster was not something that we support. Hopefully they will get the message.Just don’t be surprised if Wal*mart has a larger than normal amount of stock on hand come November 19. I don’t know how fast their supply chains can react, but it’s just silly to think Wal*mart doesn’t hire someone to keep on top of the pulse of their customers by scanning the media regularly and plugging search terms into Google.So the boycott is off, the BUYcott over at Wal*mart is on, and woe to any bigbox that pisses gun owners off. I’ll publish an address to write to in my Ammo Day Nov 19 Blog post.