National Rifle Association board member and Washington Times columnist Ted Nugent returned to the subject of last month's raid on Gibson Guitar Corporation factories in an appearance on last night's edition of Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Tonight. In that raid, federal agents confiscated wood, hard drives, and guitars on the suspicion that Gibson had illegally imported Indian hardwood

After declaring Dobbs the “quintessential American” and stating that he has both owned and “blown up hundreds” of Gibson guitars, Nugent offered a unique take on law enforcement procedures:

NUGENT: What they did to Gibson Guitars is so illogical, so anti-American, so contrary to the claims of creating jobs, they shut down a globally-revered American craftsman, Gibson Guitars. And you know, Lou, I'm just a guitar player, but let me know how I would have done it if I heard that maybe Gibson had some illegal wood. I wouldn't get an armed raid like I was going after some child rapist or murderers or drug runners, of course, then we'd have to arrest the ATF. What I would do is I would call Gibson and say, “Hey, can I come down and look at your receipts? I hear you got some bad wood.” Can you believe the depth of abuse and the outrageous assault on freedom and positive forces in this country?

So if law enforcement believes a company is violating the law, Nugent thinks they should call the company up, tell them they are under investigation, and ask them nicely to provide evidence. Such a policy would, of course, invite those companies to destroy evidence, which is why the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents instead did what law enforcement typically does in the real world -- gather evidence, present it to a judge, and get search warrants for the premises in question. That, in Nugent's mind, makes them “jack-booted thugs.”

Of course, Nugent isn't so lenient with everyone. He's also said that “If it was up to me, if you uttered the word 'gun control,' we'd put you in jail,” and asserted that “a kid going to a Grateful Dead concert who's caught with sugar-cube-encrusted LSD” should “get caned” and be raped in prison daily by “a huge, unclean black man.”