Then I learned that in 2012 several of Mercer’s associates had set up a nonprofit in Georgia blandly named the Law Enforcement Education Organization. Among the founders were Mercer’s son-in-law George Wells and Wells’s longtime friend Peter Pukish—both of whom were also Lake Arthur volunteers. Chairing the group was former Georgia Representative Robert Barr, a Mercer lawyer and National Rifle Association board member who got pranked in the 2006 mockumentary Borat. (The movie captures his sour expression when he’s told the cheese he just ate was made from a woman’s breast milk.) Tax records suggest Mercer gave the group’s sister foundation more than $400,000, and his gun company became a sponsor (see note 1, below) . The purpose: to educate local authorities across the country about the rights of off-duty police officers to carry concealed weapons. The group showed up at police conferences and handed out brochures and moon pies.

States vary widely in their approaches to regulating concealed weapons. But in 2004, Congress passed the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, declaring that police officers can carry concealed guns in any state with no need of a local license. The law applies to officers who are off-duty and out of their jurisdiction—and includes volunteer reservists.

The law made a police badge an immeasurably valuable item in places such as Suffolk County, N.Y., where Mercer lives, and where concealed-carry permits are granted only rarely. Applicants must prove they face “extraordinary personal danger”; in 2016 the county rejected the request of a man who had helped the FBI take down an outlaw biker gang. Even if Mercer did get a local permit, it wouldn’t be valid if he traveled to New York City or to most other states. For people in Suffolk who want to carry, the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act is a tantalizing way to cut through all of that—if they can find a police force that will grant them its tin.