Recently, the public has become aware of a reclusive billionaire named Robert Mercer.  His name is connected to pretty much all things corrupt and deplorable – Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Cambridge Anaylytica, and many others.  He’s bankrolled child molesters like Roy Moore, and poured millions into think tanks propaganda mills contributing daily to the dumbing down of conservatives and the proliferation of fake news.  Along with the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson, Mercer is apparently doing all he can to destroy America as we know it and turn it into an Russia-like oligarchy where money is “speech” and poverty is “freedom”.  These guys believe if they can’t win, they’ll just buy the power they want.

As disgusting as that is, he participates in what on the surface appears to be a really odd activity: he is a volunteer police officer in a tiny New Mexico town.  The town of 433 people, with only ONE full time employee, the police chief, has a volunteer force of reserve officers of 84 people who come from all over the United States.  That’s right, a town of 433 people out in the middle of nowhere has a police force of one, backed up by 84 (at its peak 150) reserve officers.  They are each required to serve 6 days a year, train and qualify.  The do sniper training and tactics.  Weird, right?

Well, not so much.  It turns out that Congress passed a bill in 2004 called the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, which allows police officers to carry a concealed handgun, even if local laws prohibit it.  Reserve officers qualify to carry handguns anywhere they care to in the US.  After the law passed, badge factories sprung up all over the country making gun nuts a reserve officer just so they can carry guns even in jurisdictions, like New York City, that prohibit it.  Besides just simply being a piggy bank for every weirdo and radical on the political right, it turns out that Mercer is a gun nut.  He bought Centre Fire Arms, which manufactures and sells assault rifles.  His son in law runs it.  He also started, with others, Law Enforcement Education Organization which was set up to encourage the carrying of firearms by law enforcement officers across state lines under the Law Enforcement Safety Act.

The Bloomberg article linked above is a fascinating read, and a story of which I was not aware.  Mercer has emerged as one of the scariest guys in modern politics.