Federal Land Starts at the Curb

Last weekend we made a road trip to Virginia for a friend’s son’s wedding. On Sunday, we planned a side trip to Bethesda to visit another friend who had surgery at the National Institute of Health. This is an amazing federal facility where some of the top doctors in the country do research into difficult diseases. I had never heard of it before our friend was admitted.

On the map, Bethesda is barely two hours from Richmond. Another friend who was in from Florida, came along because we had plenty of time to run to Bethesda, visit our recovering friend, and get her back to the Richmond airport in time for her 5 pm flight.

I am sometimes astonished at my own naivete, or ignorance, or simple refusal to think things through. I began to question our plan as we repeatedly hit traffic the closer we got to the beltway. I kept doing math in my head and convinced myself we could still pull it off. Our friend was recovering from major surgery. We did not need to be there for a long time. We could do this.

We arrived at NIH and pulled up to the gate. Our friends had warned us that it was a secure federal facility and that we would have to go through airport-like security. So, we unloaded all of our luggage and hauled it into the guardhouse to send it through the scanner. Before he got out of the car, Evans asked the guard what he needed to do with the firearm that was in the car. The nice guard told him to stay right there.

Soon there were several people talking with us. They were asking questions like, “are you retired military” and “any chance you are a former police officer?” In addition to the normal scan that we had done inside the guardhouse, they were now rechecking my and Evans’ drivers licenses, running the tags on my car, and asking for our car registration. The nice man kept talking in a very calm voice and over explaining things. He said that federal property begins as soon as you leave the city street, not when you go through the gate. He explained that because we had a gun on a federal property they were required by law to issue a citation. While that was unfortunate, it was not that big a deal.

I kept thinking that we really needed to move this along if we were going to get in to see our friend who was recovering and get our other friend to her plane on time.

Then, the nice police officer said, “Now, we are arresting your husband but we will only hold him for two to three hours and then he will be released with a citation.”

You know how people say that time stands still? How everything seems to move in slow-motion? I heard the words coming out of his mouth, but they did not make any sense to me. Then I saw Evans about thirty feet away being handcuffed. HANDCUFFED! I am ashamed to say that when my brain finally started working again, the first thing I thought was, “April is going to miss her flight.”

I must have looked gobsmacked because again, the nice policemen tried to assure me that my husband would be returned to me in a few hours after he was booked, fingerprinted, and processed. The second thing I thought was, “Evans is going to be so pissed.”

Suddenly I heard Evans laugh. He was surrounded by federal police with his hands cuffed behind his back, but he laughed. I breathed and time started working at normal speed again. They took him away.

Eventually, the guards released the rest of us and told us to go visit the patient and the police would bring Evans back to us when they were done. We did and our friend was in miraculously good shape considering the severity of his surgery. Sooner than expected, the nice feds and Evans came into the building where we were visiting. Again, each policeman went out of his way to be nice, shake hands, and reiterate that it was just a misdemeanor.

So, we have another trip to Bethesda planned at a yet to be determined time during which Evans will appear before a federal judge. We have to petition to have my (that is a whole other story) gun returned from the sheriff of whatever county Bethesda is in. We now know that Maryland does not have a reciprocal agreement with Tennessee when it comes to carry permits for handguns. And, most importantly, federal land begins at the curb, not at the gate.