The next big menace.
Who would have thought that having roving bands of heavily armed conspiracy theory freaks roaming the desert looking for "justice" to dish out
would lead to problems.
A group of heavily armed militia surrounded and confronted a group of people near the U.S.-Mexico border who they thought were illegal migrants or smugglers, but who turned out to be a group of conservationists conducting a wildlife population survey. [...]
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada told TNN that the militia men — who are civilian volunteers and not actual federal border patrol agents — were riding ATVs, wearing camouflage and brandishing weapons when they came upon the group of scientists.
“Obviously, they mistook them for smugglers or illegal entrants,” said Estrada.
Aside from surrounding and "confronting" the camping biologists (they were doing a study of the local bat population), there was no gunplay—presumably because the scientists spoke English and so therefore could swear at the dumbasses in their native language.
Estrada said that one of the border militia apologized to the angry and frightened scientists, but they “weren’t having any of it.” [...]
Gardner Canyon is a popular spot for camping and hiking and people are often there at night, said the biologists. The militia are needlessly putting people’s lives at risk, they said.
Indeed, that would be the whole point of wandering the desert at night while heavily armed and looking for trouble. That the militia didn't know they were performing their savvy recon efforts in a popular camping area is just an unfortunate
oops, the same sort of
oops that's going to happen when these brilliant tacticians sooner or later accidentally wander across the border and get in a shootout with Mexican law enforcement. Or, even more likely, stumble into another "patriot" group wearing camo and waving guns, upon which both groups suppose the other to be one of those vicious and heavily armed drug cartels they keep hearing so much about.
That said, none of them will learn a damn thing from this. Within a week World Net Daily will have convinced their readers that the bat-counting biologists were in fact part of a secret cartel to smuggle vampires across the border, and the militia sites will suddenly be peppered with advertisements for buying garlic and Holy Water. If they can freak themselves out over finding a soccer jersey, just imagine what drama they'll be able to wring out of "scientists counting bats."