Read this one, but more importantly, read all of the next link.

Federal authorities using armored personnel vehicles and helicopters raided two gun stores and a compound south of Deming on Tuesday in an undercover investigation into sales of weapons and ammunition to Mexican drug cartels.

Officials found a bunker with weapons under the gun store in Deming.

Arrested Tuesday morning in Las Cruces in the case were Rick Reese, 55, who holds a federal firearms license and is the owner of New Deal Shooting Sports II on Amador Avenue and New Deal Shooting Sports in Deming; his wife, Terri, 48; and their two sons, Ryin, 24, and Remington, 19.

[…]

Helicopters and armored personnel carriers took part in the Deming raid about 7 a.m., while federal agents were also seen searching the Reeses’ barbed-wire-fortified compound south of Deming. The compound, which sits on dozens of acres, has a windmill, power generators, storage sheds and an open garage with several military-style vehicles parked inside.

[…]

Rick Reese was profiled in a Southern New Mexico publication in 2005. It gives a pretty clear indication that he’s a survivalist nut. It did not hint at his possible illegal activity.

Is the Sky Really Falling?

Deming gun guru Rick Reese thinks so—and he’s going to be ready.

[…]

For as long as I’ve known Rick Reese (four years, seems like 10), he has been prognosticating a meltdown of the American economy—not just a recession or a depression, but the Big One. When you have an $8 trillion national debt, troops in 180 foreign countries and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to finance, you begin to believe something might be ripe for implosion. Maybe he’s right. Maybe this time the sky really is falling.

But first let’s start at the beginning.

Rick and wife Terri Reese are managers of New Deal Shooting Sports, located about six miles southeast of Deming. Their large showroom sits on a considerable number of acres out by Dragon Ridge. Like all infrastructure on the Reeses’ holdings—their house, outbuildings, storage sheds—the 30-by-90-foot shop is “off the grid.” A working windmill supplies the water, power generators create the juice, and the rest is provided by good old-fashioned manpower.

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The rules under which New Deal and other gun shops labor seem to increase in number and complexity every year. Reese sees a government campaign to close down and intimidate legitimate businessmen like him who happen to be in the gun business After all, you can’t wave away 460,000 missing gun shops by pointing to your Wal-Marts and Cabellas alone. And besides, who would want to gab about guns in a Wal-Mart, anyway?

Fewer stores, fewer sales, fewer people talking, fewer potentially armed militia—that’s the connection Reese draws. “We’re not talking about the anti-gun people here,” he says. “We’re talking about something bigger, something much more sinister.”

He pauses, shaking his head. “There were men in my youth that took care of things. They were quiet about it, but provided for their families and their community in very substantial and courageous ways,” he says at last. “Now I look at people and wonder if there are enough real Americans left who want to live free and pay the price that freedom costs.”

[…]

Read that whole article for a good look at a person who is concerned about the debasement of our currency, religion being pulled out of the schools, and who, by the way, shot himself in the leg once.

Rick Reese out on the shooting range—just in case. Photo by Bob Venners

Ryin Reese (Courtesy photo)

Remington Reese (Courtesy photo)

Rick Reese (Courtesy photo)

Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations seized hundreds of weapons Tuesday at New Deal Shooting Sports in Deming, where officials found weapons stored in a bunker under the store. The store owner, his wife, and their two sons were arrested. (Special to the El Paso Times)

UPDATE: Located here.