05.30.13
Bean Pounding: The gun nut letter
Blobs of castor powder containing ricin and some oil stains.
Bigger.
“You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns … Anyone [who] wants to come to my house will get shot in the face. The right to bear arms is my constitutional, God-given right and I will exercise that right till the day I die. What’s in this letter is nothing compared to what I’ve got planned for you.”
The grinding or pounding of castor seeds into castor powder containing ricin has its roots in the violent far right in the US. As far back as the late Eighties, American men in this demographic were interested in it, publishing recipes for the process in their pamphlets and books. The books and writings were devoted to collecting knowledge on how to use and make improvised weapons in an insurrection against the US government, or for use in a race war.
Many of the recipes for ricin now found on the Internet descend from the writings of Kurt Saxon, first in a pamphlet called The Weaponeer, and later in The Poor Man’s James Bond.
The newest case of ricin mail with its letters threatening the President, Mayor Bloomberg and to his Washington-based gun control group, implicates a philosophy not uncommon in the country’s violent far right.
The old blurb on the back of Saxon’s The Poor Man’s James Bond, has relevance in relationship to the implications of violence, outright threats, in this fresh collection of ricin letters:
“It is bad to poison your fellow man, blow him up or even shoot him or otherwise disturb his tranquility. It is also uncouth to counterfeit your nation’s currency and it is tacky to destroy property as instructed in [the chapter] Arson and Electronics …
“But some people are just naturally crude … It is your responsibility, then, to be aware of the many ways bad people can be harmful …
“Also, in the event that our nation is invaded by Foreign Devils, it is up to you to destroy them with speed and vigor. Or — and perish the thought — if our Capitol should fall to the enemy within, I expect you to do your duty.
“It is right to share with your enemies, the knowledge in this wonderful book …”
This bleak philosophy, or attitude — if you will, has long been associated with America’s violent right.
WhiteManistan may not like what the extremists are doing, or the implications of the threats in the latest ricin letter, but that’s where the roots of it are.
Formally, at GlobalSecurity.Org. Twitter tweet and share, please.
Update:
More letters associated with the Matthew Buquet ricin case in Spokane have been reported.
From the wire:
The FBI today said that a total of five threatening letters, three of which tested positive for the poison ricin, were mailed from Spokane earlier this month.
Four of the letters, including one to President Obama and another to Fairchild Air Force Base, have been intercepted, the FBI said.
One letter was apparently also mailed to the CIA and has gone missing.
If this hold, then all three of the recent ricin mailings have involved letters sent to the president.
Rhetorical question: Why does anyone thing personal mail with powders in it would ever get to the President over ten years post anthrax?