Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

The following is competely true.

For the last 18 months or so I have been storing stuff for friends in the cavernous basement of my old house. Indeed I had a load of stuff belonging to McC down there for a while. I also had stuff stored for a friend who had got divorced and moved to Tokyo. When we found out we were moving to Cincinnati, he flew back into town and cleaned his stuff out of the basement. Some went to the dump, some was given to friends. I got all of his tools. Space is at a premium in Tokyo so there wasn't much he could keep but we did ship off a dozen or so boxes. The return address on the shipping notice was mine (in case stuff got lost)

Cut to this morning.....two agents from the Department of Homeland security call round to see me. Asking lots of questions. They were very polite and I was glad to help them. Seems like Andy had a couple of old hand guns in his stuff. I dont know if he sent the guns to Japan or to his relatives in the US but uncle Sam wanted to know. The agents are coming back to see me to have me verify a photograph of Andy. I told them I could do that right now with one of many I had here.

Now I know that sending guns through the post probably has a set of declarations that go with it and that Andy has probably neglected to follow protocol on this, but if the guns were only staying stateside (They were antique pistols not magnum hand guns) then why are we wasting all this time and money. You can walk down the road here any day of the week and get an automatic rifle for crying out loud.

The officers had come all the way from Dayton. They already had extensive sets of notes. The taxpayer has already spent thousands of dollars on this and will spend more. In addition real terrorists are going about their business in peace. It reminds me of the scene from Inspector Cluseau(Sp?) when he asking the organ grinder for the monkey licence while the bank is being robbed behind him.

I will keep you all posted if I can get to the computer in Guantanamo. Don't forget kids I"m not a US citizen so I can be held without trial for ever and ever.

Just to keep you up to date my friend Andy called last night to tell me that he has been interviewied by the Tokyo police on four different occasions. One of these sessions took twelve hours. Twelve is also the number of officers who turned up to accompany him to the station.

To fill you in on how much of aterrorist threat these weapons are i can now divulge that they are Samuel Colt pistols manufactured between 1850 and 1851. They fire a ball which has to be rammed down the barrell after the wadding and powder. They were originally 38's but were re bored to 44 calibre at the Colt factory. At the same time an engraving of the Spanish American war was put on the side. It is estimated that there are only a handful of these in existence. They are conservatively estimated to be worth 15 grand apiece. Seeing as they are together in a case with supporting documentation they are thought to be worth about 100 grand.

At the moment no charges have been pressed. Sadly it looks like the authorities will confiscate the weapons.

Again I point out to you that while this farting around is going on the terrorists are not taking the afternoon off.

This is fascinating stuff.

I wonder who gets to keep the confiscated weapons?

It looks like the Dayton police station is going to get a new fuel efficient Hummer2.

Just because I'm killing time before a very scary family vacation I'm foreced to go on: That's really really stupid... is the government so hard up for cash they are resorting to stealing the population's collectiables/antiques!

That's terrible! Is he able to get them back...ever? If not, there has to be some legal recourse, I mean 100 grand, antique symbols of distinctly American historic significance...there's a story for 60 minutes, or 48 hours, or one of those. Seriously, who do you have to call to get those guys to do a story on the misuse of funds, and how American citizens are victimized by the laws that are meant to catch terrorists? John Stossel would love this one...

Remember when John Stossell asked Dave Schultz if wrestling was real and then Dave kicked the shit out of him? I bet Tom Ridge would have the same type of reaction.