Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Preparation

In all this litigation, Joe had sent the county a subpoena for all the communications between the county commissioner, land use department, and the hearing examiner deciding the administrative appeal of the building permit. The county said no such documents existed. One morning a package appeared on at the main gate to Joe’s facility. It contained several years of emails between the commissioner and the judge that said things like, “Do whatever it takes to shut down Tantori” and “I don’t give a fuck about the law. Shut that asshole down.” One reply from the hearing examiner said, “Anything you say, boss.” The smoking guns.

Except Joe was out of money. He had the smoking guns but no money to get them in front of a judge. If the county judge ignored them, he could probably get the court of appeals to care.

Joe called WAB, where Eric was able to help. He got Grant, who was now the “Special Assistant to the State Auditor,” involved, too. Grant demanded to see how much money the county was spending on that the lawsuit, which freaked out the county.

The real help for Joe came from Eric at WAB. He ended up getting Joe a new trial because of the obvious bias of the judge, and the trial was a success.

After the new trial, Joe could use his range again, and he was elated. Grant got to know Joe and Joe invited him and Eric out to the range one winter day. Eric couldn’t make it.

Joe didn’t know if an Olympia lawyer like Grant had ever shot a gun. He wondered if the fragile lawyer could handle the cold weather. They went out to the range with some steel targets in the shape of a human silhouette that fell down when they were hit. Joe handed Grant an AR-15 and said, “I bet you’ve never seen one of these.” Grant thought he’d have some fun with Joe.

“Hey, I’m a lawyer,” Grant said, “I don’t know anything about guns. Is that a machine gun? Can I see it?” Joe gave him a safety briefing on how to run an AR. Grant listened patiently, pretending it was the first time he’d heard these things.

“You ready to shoot it?” Joe asked. “Don’t be scared. It hardly kicks at all.”

“OK. I’ll give it a try,” Grant said, like he was afraid. He took the AR, kept the muzzle pointed in a safe direction like a pro, looked down range, racked a round with an effortless pull of the charging handle, shouldered the rifle, smoothly clicked off the safety, got in a perfect shooting stance, and fired.

“Ping!” on the steel target. “Ping, ping, ping,” on the other targets. Grant kept moving from the left to the right in between shots to make it harder for anyone shooting at him to hit him. He hit every steel silhouette. He clicked the safety back on and handed it to Joe. Joe was shocked. He didn’t know what to say.

“I’m not your average lawyer,” Grant said with a smile.

“What branch were you in? Marines?” Joe asked.

Grant laughed. “Nope. I’m UCG.”

“UCG?” Joe asked. “What’s that?”

“Untrained Civilian Goofball,” Grant said. They laughed.

Grant winked and said, “Well, untrained when it comes to formal training. I bought one of these and shoot a little on the weekends.” They shot together all day. Joe taught Grant some tips and tricks.

Ammunition was not a concern. Joe had cases of 5.56 ammunition. The Marines would bring ammo by the pallet and not shoot all of it, so he got the leftovers for personal use. Joe could not believe that a lawyer could run an AR like that. Grant could not believe that a guy he knew had cases of ammunition.

“So, you’re a lawyer and you can shoot like this?” Joe asked at the end of the day. He still couldn’t believe it.

“Yep,” Grant said. “I’m their worst nightmare: a hillbilly with a law license.”

They both knew who “they” were. People like the bastards who had tried to bankrupt Joe.

Joe felt like he could trust Grant. So he told Grant something very sensitive that he had been thinking for a long time but didn’t want to tell anyone. Joe had a security clearance and had to stay in the good graces of his military and law enforcement clients. He couldn’t be a “revolutionary.”

“Have you heard of an organization called ‘Oath Keepers’?” Joe asked.

“Is that some religious thing?” Grant asked.

Joe laughed. “No, that’s ‘Promise Keepers.’”

Joe explained that Oath Keepers was a large national organization of currently serving and veteran military and law enforcement. The “oath” in Oath Keepers was the oath every military and law enforcement person takes to “uphold and defend the Constitution, against all enemies foreign and domestic.”

And domestic. Those words rang in Grant’s ears.

Joe, who was former State Patrol SWAT guy, said, “We take a pledge to not enforce ten unconstitutional orders we might receive. Like to round up guns.” Joe told Grant about the other nine unconstitutional orders Oath Keepers pledged to not enforce. Things like conducting warrantless searches or detaining Americans as “unlawful enemy combatants.”

Wow. This stuff was getting serious. A large national organization of military and law enforcement people pledging to not round up guns. This was not BSing over beers. This was serious.

“What I like about Oath Keepers,” Joe said, “is that they’re not militia whackos. They don’t want to overthrow the government. They want people to honor their oaths. That shouldn’t be too controversial.”

Joe couldn’t figure out how people were putting up with what was happening so he had to ask Grant, who was an Olympia insider. “When are people going to rise up?” Joe asked. “I mean, I’m no radical or anything, but this system isn’t working. If they can do this to me,” he said referring to the illegal searches and attempts to take away his property, “then they’re doing it to millions of other people. What’s up? What’s going to give?”

Joe stared off at the water surrounding his compound. “I mean, I don’t want anything violent to happen. But people will not put up with this much longer.”

“It’s a numbers game, Joe,” Grant said. “Now there are only a few Joe Tantoris or Ed Oleos.” Grant told Joe the story about Ed’s fight and Ed asking the same question Joe was.

“But every year,” Grant continued, “they get more reckless and think they can get away with anything. There are more Joes and Eds each year. It’s growing exponentially as they get greedier and more power hungry. They can’t stop themselves. So next year there’ll be double the numbers of people like you, quadruple the next year, and,” Grant did some quick math, “sixteen times the number the year after that. Pretty soon enough people get it.”

Grant paused and looked Joe right in the eye. “It’s coming, Joe. I don’t want it, but I can’t see how it’s avoidable. The Joes of the world will eventually fight back.”

Grant had been thinking a lot lately about how such a collapse would unfold, so he decided to tell Joe what he thought would happen. He hadn’t been able to tell anyone else this, but Joe had shared his involvement in Oath Keepers, so Grant would return the trust by telling him what he really thought would happen.

“It will build slowly,” Grant said. “It’ll take a period of years. First it will be by people like us moving to better states like Texas. Look at how many businesses are fleeing California. Then it will be by cheating on their out-of-control taxes. A Patriot voting block will develop and get stronger each year. Elections will become nasty. They’ll try to destroy Patriot candidates. They’ll cheat on the vote counting, which is shockingly easy when their people control the machinery of the voter counting. They’ll start to charge Patriot candidates and any of them who actually get elected with crimes. ‘Tax evasion,’ probably.”