FUBAR
Just WTH?
Alright, guys, I think I’ve had about enough of this week. I think I’d already had enough of this week last week, yet I think I’m going to have more of this week next week. This week…
Let me begin by saying I’m sorry that this has become a story about me. I don’t want it to be about me. I go through great pains, from paying for AI voiceover generation to never invoking my position to avoid making it about me. I want it to be about the ideas, the faith, and the path through this madness to something better, but this garbage week is about me… I think. It just can’t be helped.
It started with the situation of shots-fired on Saturday. It quickly has become something more – worse even. While getting shot at is astoundingly unpleasant it doesn’t quite hold a candle to being gaslit by “friends” and every relevant subdivision of state government in the aftermath of being shot at. If I had a predilection for conspiracy or a bit too much “hemp product” I might just swear I’d been blacklisted from up on high. Such is the state of affairs, given the recent apparent attempt on my life.
We should start from the event itself. I’ve tried to keep much close to the vest, and I’ll continue to do so where it serves my absolute necessity of safety for my family and I, but I suspect you’ll need a bit more information to work with in order to fully understand how this situation has developed, and just how insane it has become.
To start, let’s understand that I’m the focus of much negative attention among the enemy, especially locally. Those who pay attention to the local group chats suggest there’s no name more commonly in their mouths than mine – I am, apparently, the quintessential “Christofascist.” I have quite the history of both vague threats – those that don’t quite meet the legal requirements for prosecution – and genuinely criminal threats against my life, as well as having been subject to a series of attacks ranging from irritating to life-threatening on my household over the prior years due to my position. Unfortunately, I do not believe anyone has every been prosecuted, or perhaps even investigated for any of these threats or crimes. We’ll return with some details on these items later.
For background, I am an elected Republican Representative to the New Hampshire House; and I’m about the most “Leroy Jenkins” SOB you’ll have the displeasure of knowing in politics – whether the target is the Left or the pathetic GOP apparatus who refuses to defend you from that Left, I’m not one to pull punches. I’ve had just as much rhetorical powder on reserve for the traitors on the Benedict “Right” as I have had for the uniformed enemy to the Left. That’s what frames this circumstance, up, down, left and right, that I now find myself in, with what I suspect was a genuine assassination attempt on me just days ago.
I’m now going to address the details of the circumstances that transpired, from shots to the response of the relevant NH agencies, as well as the historical context that will demonstrate that this is merely the most recent attack on my household among many, and almost certainly political in nature. I didn’t, and don’t, especially want to make all this public. I do this now as I’ve run low on options, and I appeal to you all for assistance. Being an elected official and getting shot at doesn’t seem to mean much to those charged with upholding the law around here, for whatever reason. I need you all to make this story as outrageously popular and viral as possible, because that’s the only path I see forward around the official blockade that refuses to investigate. My family and I are counting on you now to help accomplish that. So, buckle in. We’re going to get into the details.
Let’s start with Saturday morning. Oddly, given the events yet to transpire, I was already on a bit of an alert due to a weird happening on Friday, and another several days prior. Earlier in the week I’d had a vehicle stop at the edge of my front yard and, it seemed, the driver used a cell phone to record my family playing outdoors – the vehicle remained for about 10 minutes. When I attempted to approach to confront the operator he sped off.
Walking into my backyard on Friday afternoon I encountered a low-flying drone over my backyard. My initial impression was that it appeared to be observing my home, and once I began staring upwards the drone took off rather quickly. I found this strange, but I continued on my business. There was road work being finished up after nearly a year adjacent to my home, so I contacted the Maine work crew to ask if they’d had a drone up by chance – the job boss informed me they almost certainly had nothing to do with it (I would learn nearly two days later that this was wrong, and they did, in fact, have a drone up, but I did not know this on Saturday).
So, I went into my Saturday already on a little bit of heightened alert due to what I thought at the time were two separate surveillance attempts on my family within a week. As a part of this I had marginally increased my security posture, and I was attempting to maintain good situational awareness. I heard was sounded like target shooting not too far off going on around noon. It sounded like multiple individuals with semiautos firing, sometimes rapidly. It was happening to the north, probably in the range of 500 to 1,000 yards away – quite far away, not especially loud, and not threatening whatsoever. It’s not uncommon at all for target practice to occur around here on a nice day. I continued to hear this target practice for quite some time, probably several hours.
Just after 2pm I had just transitioned from removing some parts from the driver side of my vehicle to removing parts from the passenger front wheel area. I was on my knees, bent forward, slipping off a caliper, when I experienced a “crack” right behind me so loud and so close that it startled and disoriented me. I can estimate the volume of the “crack” sound as being roughly that of firing a standard 22 long rifle rimfire round without wearing hearing protection – very loud indeed, and uncomfortable, but just below the threshold of being sharply painful. Just a small fraction of a second after the “crack” sound caused me to involuntarily lock-up, my muscles contracted, the deeper “bang” reached my ears, much quieter than the “crack” but still considerably louder than any “bang” heard in the distant target practice.
My initial impression was that the location of this shot came from behind me – roughly from the west. It was my immediate impression that I was receiving incoming fire, and I needed to move. I tried to stay low as I transitioned from the front of my vehicle to the rear, about 20 feet to the east, where I would gain substantial concealment between two vehicles from any shooter to the west of me. However, that movement did open me up to areas from the east to southeast, so I immediately prioritized visually searching to the areas I was now open to for any threats. I also then pulled out my cell phone and shot off a text to friends that I had been shot at while pondering whether to call 911 now or try to move again first.
That’s when, about 40 seconds after the first shot, the second shot rang out. Though my memory of it is a bit fuzzy – probably due to the massive adrenaline dump – I think it was on this second shot that I heard an impact next to me. Otherwise, the shot seemed to sound quite similar to the first, and I believed in the moment that I was the intended target. More adrenaline dumped, and I seriously began losing my higher thinking capacities and fine motor coordination.
I was at the rear of my vehicle, and I recalled that I had placed a long gun in my trunk. I immediately started to try to open the back of my vehicle to get to it, but I couldn’t find or manage to press the damned button for what seemed like forever. Eventually, I opened the hatchback, and I looked in and saw a shotgun that I had placed there to have nearby, and I realized I had it loaded for bird (or drone). My heart sank – I knew by the sound of the shots the shooter was far out of range for birdshot, wherever he was, and the shotgun was useless.
At that moment I heard a car turn onto my road about 50 yards away and begin moving towards me at unusually low speed. My first thought was that this may be about to become a drive-by shooting situation, and I realized the shotgun might not be useless after all – it probably wouldn’t be lethal at that range but a face-full of pellet might be enough to make them miss me, so I put a hand on the weapon as the car approached. Thankfully, as it passed, I saw the windows up, then I recognized the vehicle as a distant neighbor. Crisis averted. I then closed my hatchback (as I said, higher thinking skills were pretty much gone, and I have no idea why I stood up and took the time to do that), I drew my subcompact pistol, and beat feet directly into my home.
I immediately started to implement my home defense plan and give directions while also dialing 911. I don’t recall exactly what I said to 911 when they answered, and while I was actively moving through my house doing things, but I’m certain I conveyed that I thought I’d been shot at. Perhaps 10 to 20 minutes later a lone police car, no lights nor sirens, arrived in the area. The vehicle drove past my house down my road, returning about a minute later to pass by again, and just left.
We waited about thirty minutes or so for the officer to come back and stop by my home – fully committed to my home defense plan all the while – before I asked my wife to call dispatch to ask them when we can expect an officer to arrive. After speaking with them for a minute I took the phone and relayed, in some detail, what had happened to the officer on the phone. The officer inquired as to where I thought the shots came from, and I responded that I was not certain, but possibly from the area of a field across the street to the west. He told me he would come check it out. I waited probably another 90 minutes, still fully committed, exhaustingly, to home defense, before it really dawned on me that nobody was coming to help.
The next day I forwarded a description of the events to Protective Services of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, along with a request that they help me try to get State Police or the Attorney General’s office involved to investigate. I would later receive a response that reminded me State Police lack jurisdiction without a request from local PD or an order directly from the governor. That same response also refused to forward the information to the AG’s office unless and until local PD could prove that the shooting was related to my role as an elected official. This did not inspire confidence.
Monday morning, I drafted an email to the local chief of police requesting his agency investigate, or, perhaps more appropriately, his agency make a request of State Police to investigate the incident, as they might be better equipped for the task. I am not yet in receipt of any response to this email request.
On Tuesday morning I called the office of the Attorney General and left a message hoping to get somewhere on starting an investigation. Early in the afternoon I received a call back from an investigator, and it was the first promising conversation I had about the situation. He seemed to take the incident quite seriously, he took down my address, and I looked forward to hearing back about the next steps. However, by mid-day Thursday I hadn’t heard anything at all, and the potential crime-scene known as “my driveway” has been trampled a little bit daily now for five days, been rained on more than once, and subject to significant winds and a whole pile of freshly fallen leaves – and, of course, my car still being up on blocks.
On Thursday I placed my first call to the federal Department of Justice and spoke with a local US Attorney. He seemed to take the situation pretty seriously, though he wasn’t sure there was a hook for a federal investigation, but he said he would make inquiries to see if anyone else was yet investigating. I do believe he made some inquiries, as just a couple hours later I got a return phone call from the investigator at the NH AG’s office I’d spoken with on Tuesday, but the information I got in that call was both bewildering and damning.
The first piece of news I got was that the AG’s office spoke with the local PD, and they informed him that they believed my “somebody shot at me” call was nothing more than a noise complaint and was entered into the records that way. The investigator went on to then inform me that, due to the lack of evidence, they did not have enough predicate to open an investigation. That would seem to be a bit of a catch-22, since there cannot be evidence in the absence of any investigation. Nonetheless, I informed him that the event was captured in audio and video by my home security, and I asked if that would be sufficient predicate for an investigation. He wavered, clearly not expecting me to offer such evidence, and he did so in a manner that conveyed to me that nothing at all I could tell him about would result in his office investigating. He suggested that I provide the video to local PD.
That just about takes us up to the present circumstances. I’m thoroughly confounded about where to go from here. Nothing about this seems normal – at all – even placed up against known historical data. For instance, years ago, before I was an elected official getting threats related to my office, I had a shooting incident near my home. It was late at night, and there were multiple shots fired outdoors. I knew I heard impacts nearby. I called 911 and told them somebody might be shooting at my home. In mere minutes I had two cruisers with lights and sirens screaming around the bend. Minutes later I had a supervisor in an additional cruiser. They reviewed my modest security footage, walked around with flashlights, combed the whole area for the suspect vehicle, found brass in the road and bullet holes in signage on both sides of my house, and explained to me they’d have serious felony charges ready to go if they caught them... but now all I get is a casual drive-past and good luck? What happened to the AG investigator that sounded so gung-ho on Tuesday? What in the hell is going on?
I’ve only done very cursory attempts at investigating on my own. I don’t know quite what the point would even be. Even if I found something, and that seems like a remote likelihood at this point, I don’t think it would be admissible as evidence, and given the response so far, both online (even from supposed “friends”) and from authorities I don’t see what my claiming to have found a casing is going to change for them, and I don’t need to convince myself of what I already know. That brings me to the next topic of our conversation, here, which is the sheer idiocy and mystification of all things “gun” by the online crowd.
I made what, in hindsight, was a massive mistake asking on social media for help from internet “experts.” What I got was a deluge of borderline-magical, boomer-Fudd, and CSI-television responses and trolling from just about everyone – including some counter-signaling from those on my “team” that I’m not soon to forget – if you thought it was a good idea to malign my integrity while I’m fearing for my family’s safety your error might be larger than mine.
I tried to enter into these efforts with an ounce of humility, an acknowledgement of my own imperfections and limitations, and hedging my language looking for good faith engagement on the physics of sound and ballistics that might discover any other reasonable explanation than the obvious one: somebody tried to kill me.
I’ve done considerable research in the time since to plug any holes in my own understanding of the science implicated, and I’ve come away believing even more firmly that I was shot at. Here’s why:
· Firing a gun produces three-to-four distinct sounds.
o The first sound is the mechanical action activating the cartridge, is highly variable, but is quiet and only audible very near the shooter’s location.
o The second sound is the “bang” sound, booming loud and lower frequency, produced by the high-pressure gasses of combustion exiting the firearm, and is experienced as less loud (inverse square law) as you get farther from the location of the shooter.
o The third sound, if present, is the high-pitched “crack” or “snap” sound associated with supersonic rounds in flight, as a product of pressure around the bullet itself, and, as the sound is constantly produced by the bullet in flight while supersonic, it is experienced as louder the closer the bullet passes to the location of the listener, regardless of where the shot came from, and, because it is “supersonic,” the “crack” sound is experienced by the listener before hearing the “bang.”
o The fourth sound produced is that of the impact of the bullet on the target, is highly variable depending on the medium being struck, and is not particularly loud.
· The volume of the “crack” heard is reasonably estimable as about that of a 22lr, and just a little less than that of a CCI high-pressure supersonic 22lr.
o I have experience with both of these sounds, the latter of which being an accident that resulted in some distinct pain sensation as it approached a known approximate value of 160db.
o The adrenaline dump from not expecting these shots could increase the level of the pain threshold just a bit.
o Decibels are a logarithmic scale, and studies demonstrate that loud, impulse sounds are far more often underestimated than overestimated, making significant overestimation highly improbable.
o This places the reasonable estimation of the “crack” at 150, with an outside chance of it being as low as 140db or as high as 160db, with probabilities tending towards the higher end.
o From there it’s just some intermediate math to find the range that the bullet missed me as inches-to-feet.
I cannot, and believe me I’ve tried, think of any reasonable situation where I had a shot come within feet of me, as evidenced by the sounds I heard, and then another shot, over thirty seconds later, come within a similar distance of hitting me, and it was mere coincidence or accident. What? You think some kid lined up a deer, missed, putting the shot just over my head, and the deer just stood there, still, while the kid slowly cycled the weapon and put another shot in almost the exact same spot, again missing? Or, better yet, you think one of those guys doing rapid-fire target practice off in the distance moved several hundred yards closer to me, fired two shots almost a minute apart at… something, and then walked back to his buddies to continue practicing 500 yards to the north? The time between “crack” and “bang” means the shooter couldn’t have been much more than 200 yards from my position. There’s zero legal hunting or target shooting locations in that radius. If you’ve got a possible scenario that genuinely accounts for every known fact (and please, don’t just ignore something I’ve said just to make some theory seem plausible), please, drop it below so I can evaluate it myself. I haven’t come up with any.