Plinking At Preconceptions
By Mitch Berg
Local concealed-carry activists adopt a highway and – this seems to confuse some people – actually pick up the trash, while armed…
…and yet no gunfights broke out:
A group of Adopt a Highway volunteers were packing more than trash along the shoulder of Minnesota 55 in Mendota Heights on Sunday morning.
With legal guns on their hips, a dozen area residents spent nearly three hours picking up litter — everything from cigarette butts to blown-out tires — along a 2-mile stretch of the highway just east of the Mendota Bridge. It was the inaugural event for the group, which registered with the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Adopt a Highway program under the name Minnesota Carry Permit Holders.
“We believe this is the safest stretch of road right now in the state,” said Jason Walberg, who collected trash with a Springfield XD .40-caliber, semi-automatic handgun clipped to his belt.
It’s good to know that law-abiding citizens have some friends in officialdom with some common sense:
“This is a perfectly legal group … what they do is clear in state law,” MnDOT spokesman Kent Barnard said, adding that — personally — he has had a gun-carrying permit for several years. “Now, if we had the perverts and pedophiles out there, that would be a different story.”
I hope Mr. Barnard doesn’t take any official crap for having said that.
It should go without saying that any group of rigorously law-abiding citizens availing themselves of their legal right to exercise another legal right peacefully and constructively should get compared in the local media with the worst our society has to offer, naturally:
Adopt a Highway agreements say the agency can refuse, cancel or revise the agreement “if in its sole judgment the nature of the group or its sign is political or in questionable taste.”
“If a group is legitimate and wants to pick up litter, we simply can’t turn them away because we might not agree with something,” Ekern said.
She noted how several years ago the Missouri Department of Transportation lost a legal battle with the Ku Klux Klan over a stretch of highway. The case ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court.
But Missouri officials “must’ve seen the writing on the wall” before the court decision, Ekern said, because the state renamed the adopted highway for civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.
Well, not for most people; one of the commenters seems not to get it yet:
Boy, next thing you know they’ll be having KKK members picking up trash along 94 & Dale.
Why can’t they just pick up the trash without acting like, “I’m cool, I carry a gun.” What a bunch of Dirty Harry wanna bees.
Real men don’t have to carry guns.
That’s correct. Free will is involved. Now go back to writing for Minnesota Tragedy of Spyrochaetal Paresis “Progressive” Project.
With one exception Nick Ferraro, the Pioneer Press’ reporter, does a fair job, though – which might be symptomatic that the notion of law-abiding citizens exercising a legal, civil right and doing it without a whole lot of muss and fuss really isn’t that big a story.
The exception – and it’s not Ferraro’s fault, most likely, but some copy editor who (I’ll be charitable) probably didn’t think that hard before headlining the story “Packing Heat, Picking Up Trash”.
Note to all of the media of the world; nobody has used the term “packing heat” to refer to carrying a firearm since James Cagney ruled the silver screen. Please cease and desist.
October 26th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
“Now, if we had the perverts and pedophiles out there, that would be a different story.”
Something something Minneapolis city council something something
October 26th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
On I-35 south of the Cities there is a stretch sponsored by ‘Minnesota Atheists’. In fact, according to their website they sponsor several stretches of highway across the state.
I can’t find any newspaper articles on that.
Coincidence, I’m sure.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
It may have been legal, but smart? Idunno.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
As I was packin’ my gat and my roscoe — instead of my piece and my heater, or my equalizer and my hand cannon — prepartory to heading out to the cleanup yesterday, I was wondering if we’d escape the whole “packin'” thing.
Actually, I thought it was fun story, all in all. I wish they’d have swiped some from the PR, though, particularly the headline and deck:
“Men With Guns Threaten to Clean Up Town
Trash in Fear of Being Bagged and Disposed of”
It was fun time, and the reporter, Nick Ferraro, seemed to be nice, competent guy.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
wow, a reporter with a sense of humor, who knew?
October 27th, 2009 at 8:06 am
Breast cancer survivors wear pink T-Shirts to pick up trash, not because the T-shirts have any helpful effect on the trash itself but in order to raise awareness of breast cancer and perhaps more importantly, to show that breast cancer survivors are normal people, just like everybody else.
Nobody snarks that Real Women don’t Need to wear Pink to be feminine, or smirks that wearing a Pink T-shirt is a sign of having a flat chest.
I think gun-toting trash pickup was a genius PR move and I’m glad the paper not only picked it up but played it straight. These sort of events help the movement become seen by the public as normal, ordinary and possibly even respectable.
Good job, Joel [and crew].
.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
“packing heat”
Yet no mention of the rut and the upcoming deer hunting season.