Seriously, twice in one day?
My wife got home to find two business cards in our front door. One was from an FBI agent. The other was from a detective with my county police. With the cards was a note asking me to call right away.
So here I am in Indianapolis, calling the police to ask why they were calling me.
The answer: someone reported me to the “If you see something, tell someone” terrorist tip line. Yup. And I even know who it was. A couple days ago I received a shipment of ammo via a freight company. The driver was clearly disturbed by the fact that I didn’t have a badge and demanded to see some ID before he’d offload the ammunition.
Then, he apparently called the FBI because, you know, who needs that much ammo?
The detective was extremely polite and professional and once I was able to give him some information about my job, etc., he let me know the issue was closed.
Still… thanks very much Mr. Sissy Truck Driver. Your office will be hearing from me on Monday.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
IIRC, part of the “probable cause” for the original search warrant for the BATF raid on the Branch Davidian church and communal dormitory was the UPS driver reporting that he’d delivered boxes of “hand grenade casings” and ammunition to David Koresh. It’s nice to see that the brown shirts at UPS are still continuing the snitching tradition 16 years later.
More than a decade ago somebody gave flight instruction to a bunch of A-rabs who weren’t interested in learning how to land the plane. That was legal, if unusual. The instructor kept his mouth shut, no doubt out of his respect for their privacy rights. Some major disasters MIGHT have been avoided if the instructor had said SOMEthing to SOMEbody (note I said might have avoided, not guaranteed, but by keeping quiet it did guarantee that the disasters would occur.)
Deliveries of large quantities of ammunition are probably extremely rare as a percentage of the boxes UPS/FedEx/USPS deliver every day. It wouldn’t surprise me, it probably wouldn’t surprise you, but THIS driver probably had never seen one. A large order of ammo is not the same as a large order of tampons or a large order of coloring books. People have been known to do bad things with lots of ammo. So the driver made a call.
We live in a different and dangerous world today. Most of us don’t live where everybody know who are the good guys and who are the problem children. Reportedly, there have been dozens if not hundreds of terrorist plots foiled by the authorities over the last decade. I’d be willing to bet that at least some, if not many, of those involved observant citizens who passed on information which was technically “none of their business.”
If this case had been handled with a SWAT team kicking down ToddG’s door then it might call for drastic and draconian responses to every person involved in the process, including those who were “just following orders.” But what he got was a visit and a phone call, and a prompt “case closed.” Uncomfortable? No doubt. But we don’t live in the world many of us remember and wish it still were.
I’ve had problems with UPS delivering ammunition in the last few years too. None of the drivers have squealed on me though. I’m a retired, disabled veteran, so I’m usually at home when I’m not at the range.
Many times I have been jolted by a loud THUD on my brick porch, and opened the door to find that Mr. Brown had just dropped a 1 – 2,000 round package of pistol ammo on the hard surface. I’m glad they pack those cartons well.
I’m still simply blown away by anyone who would try to say this is OK.
“We don’t live in the same world we did before 9/11…” Yes, we do. The same bad people existed then – we just weren’t as AWARE of them!
Why are we so AWARE? Because it’s in the interest of Those Who Rule to keep us all afraid!
More people died of choking on a sandwich than from terrorism in the last 10 years!
Further, more died on an average day in Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China (or Pol-Pot’s cambodia, or… or…
I’ll take my chances with the rag-heads – it’s the criminals/terrorists in the magic suits/with the magic tin talismans/writing the magic incantations in their white marble temples that scare the sh*t out of me!
In most parts of the country the press would report finding 500 rounds of anything as a “cache” of ammo.
So by the same linguistic logic when a group of buddys go to a USPSA match that would be a tactical unit with an “armory” and the average USPSA member who reloads has an arms/ammo “depot.”