VIRGINIA CHECKPOINTS: WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

[This excerpt from my 2003 novel “Enemies Foreign And Domestic” takes place two weeks after a false-flag sniper attack on a packed football stadium, one week after all semi-automatic “assault rifles” are banned, and a few days after a prominent anti-gun Senator from Maryland is assassinated.]

 

Virginia Attorney General Eric Sanderson was in his favorite place, standing in front of a bank of television cameras.  There was nothing he loved better than being in the public eye, and today he was taking personal credit for pushing through a brand new anti-terrorism program.

While his aides gave him a countdown to air time, news producers were shoving five dress-uniformed chiefs-of-police around behind him like movie extras, framing the television shot for the best effect.  These medal-wearing law enforcement officials went along passively with being grabbed and pushed like stage props: they were also aspiring politicians, and they cheerfully suffered the indignity of the moment as fair trade for the television face time.

It had not been a simple matter for Sanderson to pull together a television-ready demonstration gun checkpoint team in 48 hours, but he had done it.  He had the gift, he was going places and all of the important people knew it.  Doors opened themselves magically in front of him as they had all of his life, from Harvard Law up until today, because success was Eric Sanderson’s birthright.

Now it was 11:59 AM on Friday, and a dozen television cameras were bore-sighted on his powdered face and perfectly coiffed hair.  Behind him and the police chiefs, spreading across the west-bound lanes of I-64 in Norfolk, Virginia State Troopers were directing cars at a walking speed through channels of orange traffic cones.  Randomly selected vehicles were being directed onto the shoulder of the highway to park and await inspection.  Desert camouflage painted Humvees at each end of the control zone provided the military bookends commanding the scene and framing the camera shot.

A careful television viewer might have noticed fully automatic M-16 assault rifles slung on the shoulders of the half dozen camouflage-wearing National Guardsmen posted evenly along the hundred-yard length of the control zone.  Unseen were the dozen Norfolk Police SWAT Team members concealed around the area with their own sniper rifles pointing outward, protecting the publicly-gathered VIPs from the fate of Senator Randolph.  Unseen were the three police helicopters orbiting high above with their zoom video cameras scanning the surrounding neighborhoods.  Unseen were the Glock and SIG pistols beneath the suit jackets of the undercover Virginia State Police bodyguard detail located just off camera on both sides of the Attorney General, looking stern and almost Secret Service-like with their sunglasses, earpieces and coded lapel buttons.

Standing behind a podium jammed with a cluster of microphones, Sanderson began his prepared text at exactly 12:03 PM, precisely timed to give TV producers and mid-day news anchors a chance to begin their shows and then cut to him as the “live and local” breaking news story.  Besides all of the local network news affiliates, several of the national cable news channels were also present, preparing to send his words and images of his highway checkpoint program nationwide from coast to coast.  Already his staff had been approached by producers from several network news shows to schedule interviews.  One weekly show was already referring to him in a promotional piece as the “national gun safety crusader.”

Down the front of his podium there was a printed sign:

1-855-GUN-STOP

Firearms

Inspections

Stop

Terrorism

“Good Afternoon.  On behalf of the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and at the direction of President Gilmore, I’m here in Norfolk today to announce the launching of a new anti-terrorism program.  On the highway behind me you are seeing the very first of Virginia’s ‘Firearms Inspections Stop Terrorism’ mobile units, working to ensure the safety and security of all Virginians.”  Sanderson paused to give the cameras a chance to pan across the checkpoint area.

“Beginning with the Stadium Massacre twelve days ago, we have all witnessed an unprecedented outbreak of domestic terrorism, much of it, tragically, originating here in Tidewater Virginia.  Fortunately, the true home-grown militia origins of the Stadium Massacre were discovered, otherwise we might have placed the blame for that atrocity on our Muslim countrymen, as the conspirators had obviously intended.  The Stadium Massacre, as horrible as it was, would have been even worse if it had been falsely blamed on an innocent and too often maligned segment of our diverse multicultural society.

“The Stadium Massacre was caused by the easy availability of assault rifles in America.  Since the passage of the Schuleman-Montaine Firearms Safety Act that flood of weapons has been stopped, but, realistically, we know that there are militantly reactionary segments of our society who do not intend to comply with our new firearms safety laws.  The sniper rifle murder of Senator Geraldine Randolph on Tuesday, the day the new law went into effect, is an indication of the lengths that a small but extremely dangerous number of gun fanatics will go to in order to sabotage effective gun safety legislation.

“We have also seen a local wave of firearms-related violence, such as gun store arson attacks, and the drive-by machine gun shooting of a mosque in nearby Portsmouth Virginia.  The very location of this checkpoint where I am speaking today is itself less than one mile from where militia leader Mark Denton’s car bomb exploded, before he had a chance to plant his terror bomb in the Norfolk federal building.  As we know, Denton was also transporting a virtual arsenal of assault rifles and high powered cop-killer bullets when his bomb exploded prematurely on the highway, taking the lives of five innocents.

“So today I am announcing that the highways of Virginia will no longer provide a safe avenue for terrorists to transport their illegal firearms and explosives.”  Sanderson pounded his own fist on the podium for effect.  “Starting today, mobile FIST units will be in operation around the Commonwealth of Virginia, and they will soon be adopted by other states as well, beginning next week with Maryland.  These FIST units will provide much-needed security to all of us, by preventing terrorists from getting a free ride on our freeways.

“Now I am asking all of the decent, law-abiding citizens of Virginia to assist our law enforcement officers by cooperating fully when you come upon a mobile FIST unit.  Courtesy will be returned to our cooperative citizens, and only a few moments of your time will be required if you are asked to pull over for a brief inspection.  I’m confident that the good people of Virginia will consider showing this cooperation to be an opportunity for them to play their own part in our ‘war on terrorism.’

“Additionally, I wish to assure those of you in our immigrant community that FIST units are not intended to harass or intimidate you in any way.  The Commonwealth of Virginia respects and welcomes all of our hardworking immigrant population, regardless of their technical documentation status.  FIST units will only be looking for illegal firearms, and not for immigration papers.

“I would like to remind my fellow Virginians that all semi-automatic rifles are now illegal, and should have been turned in for destruction already.  Also, I would like to remind the hunters of Virginia, and I am proud to say that I am one of that group, that tomorrow, Saturday at midnight, the transportation of sniper rifles will also be forbidden.  This is according to President Gilmore’s last executive order, which he made under the provisions of the Patriot Act based upon an ‘imminent terrorist threat.’  A sniper rifle is now legally defined as any rifle with a magnified telescopic sight.  After midnight tomorrow, it will be a felony punishable by five years in federal prison to transport a sniper rifle on the highways of the United States.

“Since the Stadium Massacre and the assassination of Senator Randolph, both crimes committed using scoped sniper rifles, we find ourselves in dangerous new territory, unfamiliar to law-abiding Americans.  As I said, I am a hunter myself, and I am aware that many Virginia sportsmen will perhaps feel that they are being unfairly burdened by this law.  But since this war of snipers and terrorists has been brought to us by a handful of gun fanatics, all of us must now unfortunately share in the burden of increasing security, for the benefit of all of our society.