Early in the era of the Clinton Administration, I was talking to an acquaintance and the topic of caching firearms came up. Given the concern about Clinton and a Democrat Congress outlawing many firearms (they did enact the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban), many people were caching firearms in National Forest land.
This acquaintance knew someone who had made a hobby out of finding cached firearms. This hobbyist would go to nearby National Forest land, travel along logging roads and other side roads, and search for caches along the side of the roads with his metal detector. When he found a cache with a firearm, he would take it to the Sheriff's office and report that he had found this "lost" firearm. He would publish notice of the find as a public notice in the local news paper. After 30 days, unless somebody responded to the notice to recover their lost firearm (which never happened), he would return to the Sheriff's office and take possession of his new firearm.
I don't know what other clues this hobbyist used in his search for caches. Maybe these people didn't adequately dispose of the excess dirt? Maybe they didn't adequately fill the hole where the cache was located? Maybe they didn't restore the surface of the ground? However, they apparently buried the cache close to the road. While burying the cache close to the road is convenient and makes it easier to find, it also makes it easier for someone else to find.
If you are going to go to the effort to cache something valuable, like a firearm, put a little extra effort into placing the cache where it will take a lot of effort for someone else to find.
Friday, May 1, 2020
An Additional Warning Concerning Caching
A few days ago, I posted a roundup of articles that included one on caching firearms. I had a reader comment about potential issues with using GPS and the efficacy of using small scale maps to make it easier to locate a cache, and I recommend you reading it if you have not done so. However, I received another comment from a reader via email who gave permission for me to share it on the blog:
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I came of gun buying age in the late 1980's and I remember well the pre-Clinton Ban paranoia. I purchased a 5 foot long, 8 inch diameter heavy-duty PVC "gun burial vault" from a now long gone outfit called NIC Inc. Law Enforcement Supply in Louisiana. It weighs quite a bit and, in hindsight, I now realize how it would be a real challenge, if not downright impossible to transport to a remote location. I guess that is why, over 30 years later, it is still sitting in my basement. The point of my post here is not to talk about the burial tube, but to point out that IIRC there was a much stronger sense of gun ban and/or registration/confiscation back in those days. Makes sense, because just a few short years later, we would all wake up one morning to find out that President Bill Clinton and his co-conspirators had slipped through a ban of all firearms they deemed "assault weapons." Having lived through that, and into the present, IMHO our firearms freedoms are far more secure in the present day.
ReplyDeleteMy gun buying days started in the early 90's, but I too remember the concerns that the Feds were going to not just ban new so-called "assault weapons," but seize those already in people's possessions. It was gratifying to see the passage of the 1994 AWB backfire, both with huge Democrat losses in Congress, and with the AWB later not being renewed because of the sunset provision. If the AWB hadn't lapsed, the conversation today would be about banning shotguns capable of holding more than two rounds as either "assault weapons" or "destructive devices" (as happened with the Striker 12 shotgun) or banning scoped rifles because they are nothing more than "sniper rifles."
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