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Monday, November 22, 2010

Census Grills Me Twice, But Not About Guns

I refuted last year the silly meme that the United States Census was coming to count your guns. (For an afternoon of entertainment, Google "Census" and "guns"... or just rent Red Dawn.)

A little more evidence: an agent of the federal government, cleverly disguised as a mild-mannered Midwestern woman (why isn't al-Qaeda this smart?), came to my door a couple weeks ago to administer a detailed survey to my wife and me about our house, education, income... all sorts of information! I received a callback message from a shy-sounding headset jockey with poor breath control (she paused to take a breath in the middle of my name). When I called back Sunday (Sunday! Uncle Sam works on Sunday!), a younger woman asked to take a few minutes to double-check the questions from the in-house survey. She even ingratiated herself to me when she read my name by mentioning she'd visited Heidelberg and loved the castle. I thought for sure she was just trying to lull me into surrendering details about my intricate home defense plans.

But no. Neither woman asked about guns, knives, booby traps, RPGs, or any other arguable Second-Amendment equipment that might be of interest to tyrants bent on oppression.

I could be wrong. This is South Dakota. Maybe the Census just assumes by default that we all have guns in our homes. I nonetheless await proof from anyone that the 2010 Census asked anyone about guns.

4 comments:

  1. Do the Heidelbergers hail from Heidelberg as the name seams to imply? Is this simply a case of "you're from Iowa? I have a cousin that lives in Boise!"

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  2. Michael Black11/22/2010 6:34 AM

    Are you sure they were from the gov't?

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  3. As sure as I can be, Michael.

    Nick, I think there's some old connection, but Heidelberg might have kicked us out and made us move to Switzerland.

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  4. I think it means they were a family of printers, Nick:
    http://www.us.heidelberg.com/www/html/en/startpage

    You know... like Gutenberg... and Ben Franklin.

    ReplyDelete

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