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
The informer society. We’ve arrived at last in the legacy of the iron curtain.. let’s just hope it doesn’t need to go that far and last that long for people to realize how far we’ve sunk.
Better yet you find out who the driver is and make things better with a dish best served COLD, but instead of 20k rounds I think possible illegal gun sales and rectagular bundles wrapped in Duct tape being unloaded out of his vehicle would get a nice visit from the BATFE?? Just thinking out loud 🙂
Hope you enjoy Indy. Too bad I couldn’t join you guys this year. John does a good job getting things all lined up!
To be fair, most folks have no idea how much serious shooters shoot.
If a truck driver dropped off a drum of diesel fuel and a pallet of ammonium nitrate fertilizer at a home with no obvious agriculture, wouldn’t you want him to be a bit suspicious?
UPS “numb nuts”
That’s what happens when you raise your little boy like a little girl. He gets scared of someone buying (gasp) ammunition!
now if you had ordered 2 million rounds I would have been like… Wow that lucky SOB owns a minigun! 🙂
Maybe the driver will be disciplined so that if he has any other “feeling” about a delivery he just STFU. Nobody gets inconvenienced that way.
If that guy ever delivered to me, he’d have a f’n heart attack. Sometimes I order so much it scares me!
We should thank Mr Sissy truck driver for doing an extra good job.
@Peter – People shouldn’t be reporting deliveries of ANYTHING that is perfectly legal to posess. Even constructing AMFO for your own personal use isn’t illegal. I can even dig up the BATFE paperwork that they (the BATFE) sent me to prove it.
This is a free country, but little by little people are giving away their freedoms and rights in the name of False “Security”. How many times have we seen the reality of it all on the news, where someone gets right past security with something that can bring down a plane. Or the exact opposite, when the TSA is able to remove a potentially dangerous Child’s Toy when they frisk the 4 year old at the Security Check Point.
We all need to let Big Brother Know that we are tired of their invasive practices.
My UPS guy delivered 250rds of 50BMG to me that was packaged poorly. He had APIT rounds rolling around in the back of his truck by the time he got to my house. He thought it was kind of cool.
@JohnR –
Maybe just a different perspective. I live in a very small town. I’ve had the police chief(the only full-time officer) call me because someone reported a strange car in my driveway when I wasn’t home. I didn’t find it invasive — I was glad someone was keeping an eye on the house. I’ve called the chief when I’ve been out walking the dog and seen something unusual. He’s been here 20 years, knows everybody, and isn’t about to go kicking down doors.
So to me it’s not Big Brother — it’s looking out for each other.
The real question is, what did you get, Todd? And where did you get it?
Fairy.
@Peter –
I agree with everything in your second post. That *IS* looking out for each other.
Todd’s situation is different though. A delivery of legal goods was made, and yet a call was placed to the authorities. I can order a million rounds of ammo – there is nothing illegal about it. In fact, the authorities should have told the guy to piss up a rope, as there is nothing illegal about buying ammo, and I can buy as much as I want just because I feel like it.
I don’t think someone would call the authorities because someone had a wine cellar full of thousands of bottles of wine – afterall, who needs that much alcohol? Ammunition is no different, yet people have attached a stigma to it.
We have to draw the line somewhere, but I believe we crossed it a long time ago.
I am guessing that everyone who visits this site trains for a day that nobody wishes to see…a day where someone is doing something bad and you have the skills and mindset to intervene and help.
If Todd had been a person set on doing wrong, the whole country would be applauding that truck driver for not burying his head in the sand and making a call.
Now he is a pussy, sissy, numb nuts, etc.
We can’t have it both ways. Just a thought…no personal attacks on anybody’s own opinion.
Peter
What worries me more that the FBI and county cops didn’t even do a quick Google search to figure out who you are or what you do.
“We have to draw the line somewhere, but I believe we crossed it a long time ago.”
This says it all.
Back when I was in the military, four friends and I were returning to my apartment after a day of shooting skeet. All our guns were cased. My hippy neighbors across the hall decided to call the “report a guy with a gun” hotline that would unleash the Fayetteville, NC SWAT team on my apartment. I heard this knock on my door, looked through the peep hole and saw them stacked in the hall way. I said “Holy Shit! Its a friggin SWAT team in the hall way.” Each one of my buddies took turns looking through the peep hole because they didn’t believe me. So naturally we all panicked like we were in some ridiculous TV sitcom. I said “OK, I’m going to open the door so we should probably all put up our hands.” When I opened the door, the first two uniformed cops, upon seeing five goobers standing there with our hands in the air, holding beers, actually started to laugh. The rest of them had a look of disappointment on their faces as they turned around and left. YJCMTSU
This was back in the early 90’s. If this kind of thing happened today where I live in Northern VA, they would have stormed the apartment, shot the dog and had all of us zip-tied on the floor.
JohnR summed up my thoughts perfectly. This wasn’t a neighbor who saw something inexplicable. It was a driver who had the shipping documents right in front of him showing the ammo came directly from the manufacturer to me, by name, at my address. He also checked with his dispatcher and was told again specifically that it was ALL OK.
“If he’d been right” is a very dangerous justification. It’s used by people like Brady: “IF people who conceal carry yadda yadda yadda blood in the streets yadda yadda Wild West yadda think of the children.”
I agree with ToddG & John R.
I live in a nice retired neighborhood about 20 miles south of Dallas, TX. Yesterday I headed east to my uncles ranch for some target practice and fun shooting. When I arrived home I brought my 12 gauge shotgun in a scabbard, and my XDM 40 Compact (in a case)inside with a backpack that was full of ammo (now empty). I would say it was only about 20 minutes before an officer knocked on the front door to make sure everything was ok.
I’m all for being safe and looking out for one another, but come on. I thanked the officer for his due diligence and resumed making dinner.
I know 99% of my neighbors and most are pro gun, it is Texas:)
Not sure how I feel though that SOMEONE saw **gasp** a guy carrying GUNS (in cases) into a home.)
I guess it’s just life.
Eric
@Todd — The third “Peter” post wasn’t me.
I understand your point, and the annoyance of having to deal with being investigated. But I can’t fault the driver too much if he sincerely thought there was a threat. We’re all ignorant about something.
If he did to to be a jerk, or does it again, that’s a whole different story.
Nothing worse than a snitch society.
Everyone should go read Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.
This period of our history will be called Age of Wimpus Americanus (the New American)… Our Founders would be appalled.
I have the exact opposite problem when I order cases of ammo. They leave it at my doorstep if I’m not there.
Todd:
How much ammunition was shipped?
Puts a whole new meaning to “What can brown(shirts) do for you?”
Several years ago I was living in a pretty nice apartment complex in California. The neighbors dog started barking like crazy for a few minutes then stopped. That dog was an Akita, well known for not barking unless something is very wrong. My first thought was, something is wrong, but I didn’t know these neighbors. I thought about calling the police or just knocking on their door, but didn’t want to “bother” them.
I found out later it was a home invasion robbery, and felt like an ass for not acting on my instincts.
Since then, I’m far more proactive in reacting to anything that seems out of the ordinary.
@kevinreed, the only ones that have to fear “snitches” are criminals.
Mike B,
“the only ones that have to fear “snitches” are criminals.”
After all, citizen, if you have nothing to hide, what’s a little bit of probulatin’?
I don’t like the fact that in my lifetime, the symbolic figure of our nation has gone from Uncle Sam to Uncle Badtouch.
” the only ones that have to fear “snitches” are criminals.
The only ones who have to fear unannounced random searches of our homes are criminals, too. Oh, and anyone who has privacy rights.
@MikeB:
I am sure that Anne Frank would disagree with the premise that only criminals need fear snitches.
Perhaps you could debate the issue. The judging panel could be a few victims of Stasi executions that were performed because an informer turned them in for telling political jokes. The Stasi had one informer or officer for every 6.5 citizens.
No, Mike B, as you can clearly see, someone who is not a criminal was ratted out to the authorities, all because the government asked.
That same so-called logic could be applied to the 4th amendment. Only those who have something to hide use their rights to deny an officer his request to search their vehicle, their person, their effects. Why else would someone do it? Only a criminal would use their 4th amendment right.
What was the outcome of the call to the office of the freight company?
“the only ones that have to fear “snitches” are criminals.”
You should be ashamed of yourself.
tweaker
@Speakertweaker
If it’s the same “Mike B” I think it is—he isn’t ashamed, and he isn’t capable of being ashamed.
I could be wrong about the identity, though.
I hope that this citizen seriously considers taking legal action for invasion of his privacy rights and of his 4th amendment rights.
Unless we start pushing back in noticable and meaningful actions, we will all become victims of search and warrant-less visits by the ATF and FBI and now, just about anyone with a badge, just because we “fit into” some Homeland Security expansive and open ended without common sense profile.
It’s an agenda of intrusive assimilation to become the norm of tolerance, this is much bigger an issue, and not just an isolated misnomer by a paranoid delivery driver.
this example is becoming more frequent and if we sit tight, it will become commonplace and DHS will have won. Look at the TSA and the invasive body searches as an example of where we have lost our rights.
Get miffed, but make it meaningful. Take positive action now against a corporation that would inservice, expect it’s enforcement, and encourage this kind of invasive reporting to Federal officials. Make the phone calls now and verbalize your disapproval to the delivery company, or risk the continued invasions of your privacy, and the escalating fear that YOU will become the next victim of this kind of infringement to your rights.
And, Mr. “the only ones that have to fear “snitches” are criminals.”
May you be the recipient of actions from numerous “snitches” who erroneously judge your packages because they have been brainwashed to believe it is their job to do so. You know, by people just like you.
I can see the UPS memo now- “Drivers, if you see large amounts of ammunition being delivered, as long as the to and from addresses are correct, keep your mouth shut”.
Too much ammo: Call the police.
Too many guns: Call the police.
Growing own food: Call the police.
Posts too much on the internet: Call the police.
Hoarding rainwater: Call the police.
Odd smells: Call the police.
Raw Milk: Call the police.
staghounds,
“I can see the UPS memo now-”
It’s not like Mr. Albert Q. Aeda is ordering by the pallet load from Midway.
How about “Drivers, use your heads for something other than a place to hang those brown meshback ballcaps.”?
Say, didn’t the communist regimes have block informers who spied on everyone were they lived? And the commies paid them to do this?
Did’t the Nazis do the same thing?
Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Chavez, etc…
And don’t the Muslim countries do this?
And we have a Dem. Gov. want to suspend elections (and who knows, maybe the Constitution itself.)
That’s Hope and Change!
2012 can’t come to soon!
So, the driver SERIOUSLY thought that real bad guys would have the ammo delivered to their real address via common carrier?
What a moron. He should be fired for gross stupidity.
Meanwhile the idiot feds who let all the AK rifles “walk” to Mexico continue to draw a paycheck on our dime. See Something Say Something? Look in the mirror BATFE!
I think the problem here goes far beyond snitches and government overreach.
A lot of people in our society have been taught to fear guns and anything to do with them. They have been told that people who have guns are bad, and that guns and ammunition are inherently unsafe things that only dangerous people use.
No one on this board thinks that way or can even conceive of thinking that way. But it is widespread, which is why pediatricians are now instructed to ask kids whether their parents own any guns (ostensibly out of safety concerns). In my area, pediatricians have reported such conversations to the local police, apparently in the belief that gun ownership is somehow illegal. (How one can get an MD degree without knowing such basic information is beyond me–but that has happened repeatedly).
I don’t know any macro ways to deal with this kind of ignorance, but what I try to do on a one-to-one basis is to take non-shooters (and especially women) shooting. Nothing helps to de-mystify guns better as hate and fear get replaced by knowledge. Not all of them have turned against gun-contrl, but a lot have and many now own their own firearms. None of them now fears firearms and most did before they went shooting.
So, to keep Todd from having to spend all his time talking to federal agents, take a non-shooter shooting.
And Todd, just be glad that the agents didn’t ask to see the Glock. It might not be domestic terrorism, but letting it go 10,000 rounds without cleaning must be at least some kind of federal misdemeanor, if not an outright felony.
I’m old enough to remember when every truck had an ‘Easy Rider Rifle Rack’ with at least one deer rifle plainly visible in the back window out here in the hinterlands of southern Utah. It was practically universal. No one even noticed. Where did that country go?
And let me tell you something about snitches. When I was a police officer we regularly cultivated and used confidential informants. The thing to remember is that all of them, every single one, has an axe to grind. They’re all out for something, whether that was a reduced sentence, money or a chance to eliminate the competition without risking their own hide. When you’re dealing with a snitch it’s always best to ask yourself “What is their motivation?” It’s seldom selfless patriotism.
Few years back I’d ordered some S. Korean .30-06 and(back when you could still find it at good prices) a can of .303 Brit, and since was working days asked UPS to ‘hold till call’. Lady checked my ID and asked what was so heavy.
“Ammunition.”
Amazed, “It weighs that much?”
“It does when there’s this much of it. I found a GOOD price.”
All I got was the “You must shoot a LOT!” look; one of the things I love about Oklahoma.
I cant believe it even made it that far.You said that a local officer was there with the F.B.I. I am sure there is a paper trail somewhere in your town or county showing you as being a instructor.Couldn’t the F.B.I. asked that info from the locals first.They rather burn up some more of are tax paying dollars making a un warranted house call.
Tim, why would it make any difference if ToddG is a firearms instructor or not?
I can see some of your point, but if an ammo purchase is legal for an instructor, it is legal for everyone else, and the police or FBI have no business even quizzing him.
I’m curious to hear how things go at the airport from now on.
I’m sure you’re now on a “naughty” list of some kind.
I’m tempted to ask everyone reading to save up for however long it takes you to get 10k or so of your favorite kind of round, then everyone order their ammo on the same day and observe the reaction.
Like hell honest people don’t have anything to fear from snitches. A few years back I got a visit from the ATF & the FBI because the bug-spraying guy noticed my WASR-10 & called in a tip saying I was planning a shooting spree. (Seems he supplemented his paycheck by ratting folks out for reward money) I’m a law abiding citizen, but because of this snitch I opened my door to find a half dozen Federal agents pointing their heaters at me. I know it was the bug guy, because the Feds flat out told me who their CI was once they realized that 1) My AK-lookalike lacked a “Group Therapy” setting, B)I wasn’t planning on shooting anyone, and iii) their CI had sent them on another wild goose chase.
Over the last two months I’ve had 6000 bullets and 48 pounds of powder delivered to my home, and I’m not even home. I do however have an understanding wife. The UPS driver actually got out of his truck to bring the bullets to the house because he was afraid my wife might hurt herself carrying something that heavy.