Rebel Blob posted:

He's complaining about fast food places and gas stations. Some fast food places will give you a cup of water for free, others won't. In one review he complains about a Subway that'll only give him a tiny courtesy cup of water for free, when he wants a free full-sized cup of water. If it was just about the water he could certainly find somewhere to fill his own bottles, from a sink, outside tap, or water fountain. It's about being cheap, he wants a free drink provided by the establishment alongside his fast food meals.

Rebel Blob posted:

It's sort of amazing that Gavin has built his entire life around promoting "small government," when the truth of the matter is he's just a miser. He hates having to give his money away so much that his entire life revolves around trying to abolish taxes. It's the same as trying to get free water and refusing to tip, just on a larger scale.

Geostomp posted:

I feel like that explains most of the "small government" crowd, really. They have no problem spending trillions on the military so long as it targets what they're afraid of and somebody else foots the bill, but the second it comes to them having to contribute, spending suddenly becomes a mortal sin.

theflyingorc posted:

Actually, he's totally right about this, and worker's rights organizations are totally behind the abolishment of tipping as a practice combined with higher prices/wages because it accomplishes nothing and some people just don't tip.

It's me, I'm the tipchat.

edit: He's not right to not pay the drat gratuity when added, though.

Geostomp posted:

I feel like that explains most of the "small government" crowd, really. They have no problem spending trillions on the military so long as it targets what they're afraid of and somebody else foots the bill, but the second it comes to them having to contribute, spending suddenly becomes a mortal sin.

theflyingorc posted:

Actually, he's totally right about this, and worker's rights organizations are totally behind the abolishment of tipping as a practice combined with higher prices/wages because it accomplishes nothing and some people just don't tip.

It's me, I'm the tipchat.

edit: He's not right to not pay the drat gratuity when added, though.

Goodpancakes posted:

It seems like he wouldn't have a problem if they renamed it "service charge".

Kazak_Hstan posted:

Why doesn't this paragon of personal liberty and hewed-from-stone individualism carry a water bottle.

quote:

JOHN DAY – Michael R. Emry, a former weapons manufacturer who was an "embedded" reporter with the militia during the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, was arrested Friday in John Day on federal weapons charges.

Emry, 54, recently moved to John Day from Boise, Idaho. He was arrested at the county-owned RV park, part of the fairgrounds situated three blocks north of downtown John Day. FBI agents searching his trailer and vehicles found a fully automatic .50-caliber machine gun – a Browning M2 -- under the bed in the trailer. Law enforcement sources also said agents found explosives.

FBI special agent Miguel Perez said in an affidavit that Emry said the machine gun could fire at a rate of 550 to 650 rounds per minute.

"Emry admitted that he took the M2 from the shop where he works in Idaho about a month and a half ago" the affidavit said. Emry took the gun without the shop owner's knowledge, it continued.

He was charged in a federal complaint of unlawful possession of a machine gun not registered to him and unlawful possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, the FBI said in a statement Friday night.

Emry was booked into the Deschutes County Jail and is scheduled to appear in federal court in Eugene on Monday.

A post Friday evening to a Facebook page that Emry controls also confirmed the arrest.

"We don't know the charges — presumably it was because of the Malheur occupation," the statement said. "Michael was there as media and nothing more. For those of you who might think about cheering at the news, keep in mind that there are two issues involved here — freedom of the press and freedom of speech."

His wife, Becky Hudson, said in a Facebook post that Emry was called to the fairgrounds office shortly before agents arrived at their travel trailer. She said agents took her husband's computers.

"I was handcuffed for three hours in the cold morning hours in my robe," Hudson wrote.

Emry had been operating as "The Voice of Idaho," an online media service, when he started broadcasting from Harney County during the occupation.

He described himself as an "embedded" reporter with a militia group called 3% of Idaho that participated in a Jan. 2 rally in Burns hours before the refuge takeover.

The Idaho group disavowed knowledge of the takeover, but its leaders were a regular presence throughout the 41-day occupation. The group at one point arrived at the refuge in a convoy of heavily armed members, who said they were there to shield the refuge occupiers from law enforcement. Occupation leaders sent them away.

In an interview Thursday, Emry was vague about why he'd moved to Grant County, where he established "The Voice of Grant County" with a website and a Facebook page.

A post to the page on Tuesday praised embattled Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer.

"No sheriff in Oregon has done more to stand up for the Constitution and the Second Amendment," the post said.

Palmer twice met in John Day with refuge occupiers, asking two to autograph his pocket Constitution. He later said authorities should accede to some of the occupiers' demands.

Palmer is under criminal investigation by the state Justice Department, triggered by complaints from John Day city officials about his dealings with the armed militants.

Ammon Bundy and his followers took over the bird sanctuary to protest the pending imprisonment of two Harney County ranchers and condemn federal control of public land. He and more than two dozen others have since been indicted on federal conspiracy changes.

Emry said in the interview that he was helping Grant County citizens establish a committee to investigate media reporting and, if necessary, conduct trial-like hearings on the accuracy of stories. Emry earlier this week conducted a meeting of what he called the Committee of Correspondence, identifying three local residents who participated on the committee. County records show they all hold appointments from Palmer as special deputies – citizen volunteers.

"They were trying to find a way they could get the information out that they knew was true," Emry said.

He said he has a military background and has manufactured weapons, including automatic weapons. He said he was once described as the "Picasso of machine guns." Emry said a friend told him he wouldn't surprised if Emry could "make a machine gun out of toaster."

News of Emry's arrest ricocheted through the self-styled patriot and militia community via social media Friday night. Some claimed the arrest was timed for a day when the sheriff was out of town, a claim that couldn't be confirmed.

"The cowards waited for Sheriff Palmer to be out of town," said one Facebook post. "How much more do we have to take? Do they not realize the [expletive] time bomb they are playing with?"

Emry is the second person connected to the refuge occupation arrested in Grant County. Scott A. Willingham, 49, was arrested in March for threatening to shoot federal officials. He subsequently was charged with stealing a federal surveillance camera, removed from a roadway near the refuge as a media stunt staged by the occupiers.

Before his arrest, Willingham approached Palmer to ask for sanctuary. Palmer refused, according to Grant County officials, and Willingham stayed with a local family before his arrest.

quote:

Michael R. Emry figured out on his own how to build a potent bomb that a major drug dealer needed to kill an associate.

Emry cobbled together the parts – a clock from Walmart, a circuit board from Radio Shack and a pound of plastic explosive bought off an acquaintance.

He put the finished device in a paper bag, which in turn went into the shoe box he presented to a man who originally hired him to fix car transmissions.

Emry is the man some residents of Grant County turned to in recent weeks to help them air their anti-government views and form a private committee to press those views.

Emry, 54, described himself as an "embedded reporter" with an Idaho militia group during the occupation of the Malheur National Wildilfe Refuge earlier this year. He left Boise recently for John Day to start up a media venture with pro-militia leanings.

His history with explosives and illegal weapons is buried in the thick transcript of a 2004 federal court trial in Tennessee. Emry escaped prosecution, apparently for testifying against the drug dealer.

Now, Emry is heading back to federal court, this time in Eugene and to face his own charges. The FBI arrested him Friday, charging him with illegally possessing a .50-caliber machine gun. An affidavit described how agents found the weapon during a search of his travel trailer and vehicles at the county-owned RV park in John Day.

He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court on the charges on Monday.

The FBI has said little about the John Day arrest, giving no indication whether it is related to the occupation. So far, 27 others have been charged for their roles in the armed takeover of the bird sanctuary that started Jan. 2 and lasted 41 days. They were led by Ammon E. Bundy, an Idaho businessman who initiated the occupation to protest the imprisonment of two Harney County ranchers and federal management practices.

During the standoff, Emry's web broadcasts exuded sympathy for the declarations of Bundy and other occupiers. The record of the Tennessee trial shows Emry's own anti-government mindset dates back more than a decade.

"Our leaders are progressively putting us into a police state that no one wants," Emry testified on Jan. 16, 2004, during the trial of organizers of a major cocaine smuggling ring.

Document: Michael Emry's trial testimony

He testified that in 1999 he made 66 illegal machine guns for a Kansas man. Emry said citizens need to be armed to protect themselves, pointing to government standoffs with militants in Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge in Idaho that resulted in several deaths.

"All of these people have died standing for their principles," Emry testified.

"Lord forbid I ever have to pull a gun on a law enforcement officer," he said, but "I may have to if they start breaking the Constitution and the oaths that they upheld."

During the Oregon refuge occupation 12 years later, Bundy insisted repeatedly that federal authorities weren't obeying the Constitution and local officials weren't following their oaths.

Emry didn't specify during the trial the source of his unhappiness with the government. He testified that he was a transmission repairman by trade, working at one time in Kansas. He said he built machine guns for a customer there who was stockpiling weapons in the event of civil revolt.

He moved to Tennessee, taking another auto repair job but then undertook building a bomb for his boss. He testified that he thought the man, Ken Kimball, wanted the device to guard a weapons storehouse against discovery.

Other court records showed, however, that Kimball provided the bomb to an associate to kill Kimball's Texas-based cocaine supplier. The assassination never took place, and police later found the explosive in a storage locker.

Emry described in detail his work as a self-taught bomb maker, testifying that he made it "my business to read literature and understand as much as I can about military techniques and tactics."

He said he started with the C-4 – "scratching my head trying to figure out what I was going to do." He used a pencil to poke a hole in the clay-like explosive material to house the detonator. He attached LED lights to show the bomb had electrical power from the battery. He gave the bomb and the separate detonator to his boss.

"I'm not very proud of this," Emry testified, explaining the bomb could "cause great harm" and was "highly, highly illegal."

He described in court the power of the bomb. He said the transmission shop was three times the size of the federal courtroom.

"Probably put a couple foot crater in the center of the area and blow every single wall out and just turn it into cinder," Emry testified.

He also made a silencer for his boss.

"Again, I have a natural aptitude for this stuff," Emry testified. "Nobody has ever trained me on any of this stuff. Probably known as one of the top guys in the country to build guns that were cut from scratch."

He repeated that self-evaluation in an interview Thursday with The Oregonian/OregonLive, when he said he was known as the "Picasso of machine guns."

Emry testified that he worked in the transmission shop about six months before moving to Hayden, Idaho. He said he returned to Tennessee in 2002 when he learned he was suspected of stealing a gun. He said he lied to agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives when they initially questioned him about illegal conduct. When he learned agents had found his bomb, Emry admitted making it and gave them a full accounting of his activities.

He also testified that he acted undercover for the ATF "on certain particular cases" but didn't describe the time frame or the cases.

The man he testified against was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for a scale of crime that a federal judge described as "breathtaking."

Emry returned to Idaho, working as a mechanic and manufacturing guns for licensed dealers. One stop starting roughly in 2002 was Weaver Automotive & Engineering of Boise.

Owner Jim Weaver said Saturday that he met Emry in northern Idaho about 15 years ago – about five years after Weaver became a federally licensed gun dealer. He said he bought a gun from Emry, who then "went back east."

But Emry returned to work in his shop off and on, repairing cars. "He was a good mechanic," Weaver said. He also tended to guns and manufacturing semiautomatic AK-47s, he added.

He left the shop before Weaver sold it about 10 years ago but the men stayed in touch from time to time. They last spoke about a year ago, Weaver said..

Then, about a month ago, Weaver took one of his specialty weapons out of a storage vault to photograph it for possible sale. It was his .50-caliber Browning MP machine gun. Weaver said that after taking the pictures, he stored it in a "non-obvious place."

On Saturday, he discovered the gun missing but saw no sign of a break-in and said he was the only one with a key to the building.

The serial number, he subsequently learned, matched that of the gun the FBI recovered in John Day.

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/05/oregon_occupation_reporter_has.html

cumshitter posted:

He got pissed because he was told he had to do something he was going to do anyway. He wasn't even told to do it, it was on his receipt and he threw a fit over that despite it being common practice in every restaurant.

It's no different from throwing a fit over those signs that tell you to pay your parking ticket at one of the booths when you can do it at the exit. He intended to pay, it just didn't happen on his terms and for some reason he felt that he had to make it everyone's problem, when there was no problem to begin with.

quote:

He said he started with the C-4 – "scratching my head trying to figure out what I was going to do." He used a pencil to poke a hole in the clay-like explosive material to house the detonator. He attached LED lights to show the bomb had electrical power from the battery. He gave the bomb and the separate detonator to his boss.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Oregon Live Article posted:

He repeated that self-evaluation in an interview Thursday with The Oregonian/OregonLive, when he said he was known as the "Picasso of machine guns."

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

It's a good idea to keep a heavy machinegun under the bed in case you're home invaded by ogres.

Goodpancakes posted:

As someone who has shot a lot of an M2, lol what are you going to do with it under your bed? You are shooting that off of a huge rear end heavy as poo poo tripod at best. It's gonna take you 10 minutes at least to be able to aim and shoot it.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Young Freud posted:

What I want to know is where did he get that M2. Those don't just walk off army bases, they weigh at least 100lbs w/o tripod. He could be one if those lucky few who registered their machine guns in 1986, but I highly doubt either that or him having a FFL.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

blowfish posted:

He stole it from his boss, who owns a gun shop and more plausibly might have a license.

Octatonic posted:

My favorite part is probably in the replies some lady is like "Trump is against BLM" as if the Bueuro of Land Management is such a big dominant force that is actually on literally anyone's priority list but theirs.

I also love that "just a reporter man" literally made a bomb put a battery in some c4 and went traveling around the drat country operating a hick boomstick chop shop. This poo poo just keeps getting better

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Maybe it's like one of those pop-up Murphy beds where the bed lifts up against the wall and the machine gun appears on a tripod?

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Parallel Paraplegic posted:

Wow, these guys are too crazy for loving Trump?

Goodpancakes posted:

I would guess they interviewed his old boss and asked questions about a M2 and they figured
It out that way.

Geostomp posted:

Somehow, they just can't fathom how amassing large amounts of weaponry, often through theft without any liscence, and slapping together explosives without any real training or knowledge could possibly be of concern to anyone. No, he was just an innocent "reporter" who only happened to identify with the group trying to bring armed revolution.

These people's complete inability to imagine they could ever be in the wrong amazes me. No matter what they do, it's always the mean old government's fault.

Otisburg posted:

Looking forward to the thread title change to "currently sentencing and incarcerating..."

"currently executing," inshallah

Tayter Swift posted:

"Oh hey, thanks officer! I was looking for that the other day and just figured I'd misplaced it somewhere in the garage or put it in one of the Xmas decorations boxes again"

VikingSkull posted:

when it hits the goldmine it's gonna be "currently housing and providing medical care for..."


This sounds odd to say, but it's plausible. In layman's terms, it's legal to own a machinegun in the US by way of a $200 tax stamp and some paperwork, but it's illegal to own any produced after 1986. As such, there's a little over 100,000 registered receivers existing, and supply and demand has driven the prices sky high. A registered belt-fed, heavy caliber gun is at the top end of that spectrum, and a guy that owns one likely has an extensive collection of guns, automatic or otherwise.

Keep in mind that also, statistically, this is the safest type of firearm and least likely to be used in a crime.