As reported by The Smallest Minority and by visiting FishOrMan’s blog it’s apparent that he has gutted his posts regarding his ‘adventures’ open carry in Washington State.  I’m not surprised.  If I were his lawyer I would have him keep things much “closer to his chest”.  The less your opponent knows about you the better.  The exception would be if, in general the prosecuting attorney isn’t really your opponent.  Such as in the case of an affirmative defense of some sort like “Yes, I threw a brick into the neighbor’s window then fired my gun through the broken window killing eight occupants–who just happened to be gang raping the neighbor’s 12-year old girl and their cat.”  In that case your winning trophies at “combat shooting“ at the local IPSC matches, collection of full-capacity magazines, and your books on the “stopping power” of various bullet types is just fine for the prosecuting attorney to read up on.

So… It appears to me that we won’t have much more news from FishOrMan on what is going on.  If I can manage it I’ll show up in court to take notes and report back.

Here are direct links to track his cases in Spokane:
http://lnk.nu/courts.wa.gov/pq.cfm
http://lnk.nu/courts.wa.gov/pr.cfm

He supposedly has a court date in Ellensburg on January 3rd (IIRC).  But that is a bit farther than I want to drive and besides I can’t find it on the court system web site.

I get ‘interesting’ email sometimes.  I’ve posted about it before but this one is a bit more amusing (to me anyway) than most.  As usual I put the entire thread (minus a few details that make it impractical anyone to track this guy down) on the Bomb Help webpage on boomershoot.org but I’m duplicating it here too:

Take Down My Small City (but don’t worry)

From: Graham
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 3:22 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: guess

Hey im 15, texas. Im not going to make any bombs but knowing how to take down my small city isn’t bad. When u take apart a shotgun shell. could u fix it to explode on impact of whatever target. Dont worry i wont go blow my self and gun up really. but just wondering.

I just ‘love’ it when people tell me “don’t worry”.  I put extra work into my efforts when someone tells me that.  This guy not only does that but he writes about taking down “my small city”. 

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 4:03 PM
To: Graham
Subject: Re: guess

1) You say you are 15 yet your Yahoo profile (http://profiles.yahoo.com/ [snip]) says you are 17 as of 02/24/2004.

‘Wrong answer’ but you are still ‘in the game’ for now.

2) The number of instances where a small city is taken down and it’s not bad are practically nonexistent. And Austin (according to your profile) is not small. I’ll give you a provisional ‘pass’ on that blunder because you didn’t say you wanted to ‘take down’ the city, only know how to do it.

3) Because the primer in a shotgun shell is impact sensitive I’m sure it could be made to detonate some higher order explosive on impact.

Relatively benign question. You either didn’t want to know HOW to do this or were too stupid to ask the right question. ‘Pass’.

4) The way you found my website was via a google search for “building a pipe bomb”. In addition to looking at the first page you found, “BombHelp”, you looked at “BombHelp2002” and “chemistry” as well. The web page viewing by itself would warrant watching you closer and would give you a provisional ‘pass’. But your google search text was a really, really ‘wrong answer’. Your provisional ‘pass’ results are now ‘wrong’ and you fail the test.

Would you like to turn yourself in to your parents? Or should I just send the ATF SWAT team to your house at 3:00 AM some morning? I’m sure your ISP (Road Runner) knows where you live.

-joe-
—-
http://www.boomershoot.org

 As usual, I sent the email exchange to my Bomb Help Fan Club.  I got the following responses:

From: Lyle Keeney
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 6:05 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: RE: guess

Yikes. Kids do bear watching, don’t they?

“Hey im 15, texas.”
I wonder why he thought your name was “texas”.

Lyle Keeney
UltiMAK
http://www.ultimak.com

From: Stephanie
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 6:07 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: RE: guess

LOL – I am always entertained by these.

I like your response…

From: Barbara
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 7:35 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: RE: guess

LOL. SWAT Team at 3:00 AM.

What is even better is the response I got back from the kid.

From: Graham
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 10:26 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: guess

man u sure did shoot that down. Ok dumb question

From: Graham
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 10:38 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: guess

You scare me with how you do that. Im sorry for my dumb question. please dont look up my adress or anything. I wont bother again. ps. ur a pretty smart fellow.

I’m not particularly charitable with people wanting to build pipe bombs these days.  Especially someone stupid enough to write me about “taking down a small city”.

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 11:01 AM
To: Graham
Subject: RE: guess

I’ve got it narrowed down to two:

[snip],
Austin, TX 78741-2603
(512) 444-[snip]

[snip]
Austin, TX 78702-2610
(512) 469-[snip]

Have your mom call me in the next 24 hours and I won’t send the information to the ATFE (http://www.atf.gov) and the local police.

208-301-4254

-joe-
—-
http://www.boomershoot.org

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 11:12 AM
To: Graham
Subject: RE: guess

Also of potential interest to you is this:

http://www.boomershoot.org/general/BombHelp.htm#City

-joe-
—-
http://www.boomershoot.org

Recently there have been numerous bloggers making some mention of the Boomershoot I put on each year.  Here is a list of all of them I have noticed in the last month and could still find, in reverse chronological order:

Hell In A Handbasket
reasonablenut
Random Nuclear Strikes
Kim du Toit (nearly 4800 hits on boomershoot.org this year from Kim!)
Johnny Knuckles
Mrs. du Toit

And of course Mindless Bit Spew who has a link, banner, and just in general talks up Boomershoot whereever he is–like AR15.com which gave boomershoot.org over 2100 hits so far this year.

And despite Boomershoot being called “Wacko” in one case all the postings were either neutral (in two cases) or favorable (in all others).  Thanks everyone.  And to show I really mean it I’m extending the offer I made to James at Hell In A Handbasket to everyone.  If I get 100 or more hits (from different IP addresses) on boomershoot.org from your blog I’ll give you free entry into Boomershoot 2005.  If you think maybe you qualify and I haven’t noticed you send me an email. I’ll check it out and get back to you.