There Are Lots of 'Lone Wolves' Out There, and They Have Guns

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

07 January 18

This one, for instance, was an alleged Nazi.

eanwhile, out in the Heartland of Real America, violent fckwads are at play. Allegedly. The Lincoln Journal-Star tells us that some folks on a passenger train got very lucky that they weren’t involved in someone’s unfortunately ill-timed exercise of his Second Amendment rights.

Just before 2 a.m. on Oct. 22, an assistant conductor felt the train braking, searched for what was causing it and found Wilson in the engineer's seat of the follow engine "playing with the controls," Czaplewski wrote. The conductor, and others, subdued Wilson, then held him and waited for deputies from Furnas and Harlan counties to arrive in Oxford, 23 miles southwest of Holdrege, where the eastbound California Zephyr with about 175 people aboard stopped. No injuries were reported. Czaplewski said Wilson, who has a permit in Missouri to carry a concealed handgun, had a loaded .38-caliber handgun in his waistband, a speed loader in his pocket and a National Socialist Movement business card on him when he was arrested. He also had a backpack with three more speed loaders, a box of ammunition, a knife, tin snips, scissors and a ventilation mask inside.

Brief pause: Nazis have business cards? We continue.

Two days later, according to the federal case, FBI agents searched Wilson's home in Missouri and found a hidden compartment with a handmade shield, as well as: "a tactical vest, 11 AR-15 (rifle) ammunition magazines with approximately 190 rounds of .223 ammunition, one drum-style ammunition magazine for a rifle, firearms tactical accessories (lights), 100 rounds of 9 mm ammunition, approximately 840 rounds of 5.45x39 rifle ammunition, white supremacy documents and paperwork, several additional handgun and rifle magazines, gunpowder, ammunition-reloading supplies, and a pressure plate." Czaplewski said they also found 15 firearms, including a fully-automatic rifle, ammunition and firearms magazines, and a tactical body armor carrier with ceramic ballistic plates. In the newly unsealed federal case, Czaplewski wrote that investigators had found videos and PDF files on Wilson's phone of a white supremacist banner over a highway, other alt-right postings and documents related to how to kill people.

These are the real lone wolves in this country. People living on the far fringes of The Grid, nursing private grudges, and finding meaning in lunatic causes they read about on the Intertoobz and discovering in themselves the whiskey courage it takes to bring your private self into the public space.

An informant told the FBI that Wilson has expressed an interest in "killing black people" and others besides whites, and they suspect Wilson was responsible for a road rage incident in April 2016 in St. Charles where a man pointed a gun at a black woman for no apparent reason while driving on Interstate 70, Czaplewski said.

And guns, of course. We make sure they have plenty of guns because that’s how we all remain free.