American Mercenary is a great guy. I met him and lovely his wife at a brunch shindig put together by the Gay Cynic @ NW Freethinker last year. He also happens to be a member of the officer corps stationed at Ft. Lewis, Washington.
Right now he has a bit of a conundrum: He has a commander who has not read the US Constitution.
I don’t understand how the Commanding General of Ft. Lewis can write a policy requiring soldiers assigned to Ft. Lewis who have firearms stored within 100 miles of Fort Lewis can REQUIRE them to register their firearms with post on a form that says “disclosure is VOLUNTARY”.
As an officer they can’t give me an article 15, but they can reassign me to a crap job or court martial me, sink my career with a letter of reprimand.
Anyone think that the NRA or Second Amendment Foundation is big enough to take on I Corps?
I understand that their bodies are property of the US Army.
I don’t understand how their private property gets included in the deal.
The man in question is Lt. General Charles Jacoby Jr. and according to AM in his comments he did the exact same move during his stint in Alaska.
Seeing as how Joe rightly equates the stomping of the civil rights of firearms owners with the stomping of sexual and racial civil rights, I would like to pass on to the good General that he should have known better than to ask and I sincerely hope that AM decides to not tell.
Thanks for kind words Phil.
Last week I sat down and filled out one pages worth of serial numbers, getting angry/sad/frustrated with each line. It got to the point where I just couldn’t bring myself to write anymore.
Then my wife came home and noticed the paperwork and chewed me out for even thinking of compromising my beliefs.
She reminded me that Ft. Lewis policy doesn’t apply to her. She kindly offered to take those dangerous firearms off of my hands. How could I refuse my lovely wife anything she asks?
Excellent. I recall that Gordon Liddy has a similar arrangement. Being a convicted felon for his Watergate crimes, he can’t own any firearms. But his wife has a GIGANTIC collection.
Thats what I hated about active duty, that you de facto lost your civil rights. Glad I served, glad I’m out.
Yeah I refused to keep any weapons when I was in since I was required to keep them in the arms room. The same arms room our armorer habitually left unlocked…
I seem to recall that General’s name and the flap he caused in AK with that policy. I also seem to recall that he was forced to back down. If he does not, I can draw a 100-mile circle on a map as well as anyone, and would be glad to do some legwork in Clark County for a suitable and safe place to store the said firearms, if it comes to that. On initial inspection, it seems that it will have to be all the way south to Vancouver. I have relatives there.
Perhaps a little study into the AK flap, followed by introduction of the General to a suitably unimpressed politician from the local area might have an effect?
BTW, I don’t know if that “spousal transfer” will work in this instance without some sort of formal paperwork. Perhaps a transfer through an FFL might suffice, I don’t know.
I do remember back to my last active-duty days in the early 80’s, when the policy was that a troop WAS responsible for what his wife did, and in the USAF’s Strategic Air Command, one was held to that.