"We believe this is the safest stretch of road right now in the state," said Jason Walberg, who collected trash with a Springfield XD .40-caliber, semi-automatic handgun clipped to his belt.
MnDOT officials say the group is unique to the Adopt a Highway program, which commonly includes civic and church groups and businesses, and that members have every right to clean the road while carrying guns.
"This is a perfectly legal group ... what they do is clear in state law," MnDOT spokesman Kent Barnard said, adding that — personally — he has had a gun-carrying permit for several years. "Now, if we had the perverts and pedophiles out there, that would be a different story."
The members met years ago through pro-gun carrying Web sites or gun classes and "just want to do something good for the community," said Evan Easton, who organized Sunday's clean-up effort.
So why are they targeting trash?
"Someone just threw it out there in an online forum and it sounded like a good idea," said Easton, a 38-year-old computer programmer.
And MnDOT appreciates their work, said Jan Ekern, who oversees the Adopt a Highway program. Every year, about 4,500 groups — making up 45,000 volunteers — save the state an estimated $7 million in labor costs, she said.
Adopt a Highway agreements say the agency can refuse, cancel or revise the agreement "if in its sole judgment the nature of the group or its sign is political or in questionable taste."
"If a group is legitimate and wants to pick up litter, we simply can't turn them away because we might not agree with something," Ekern said.
She noted how several years ago the Missouri Department of Transportation lost a legal battle with the Ku Klux Klan over a stretch of highway. The case ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court.
But Missouri officials "must've seen the writing on the wall" before the court decision, Ekern said, because the state renamed the adopted highway for civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.
Missouri officials pulled the same defensive move earlier this year when a section of highway was adopted by a neo-Nazi group. The road is now named after a well-known rabbi and civil rights leader.
"It's a free speech thing," Barnard said. "And thank God we haven't had to deal with that particular issue."
Enacted by the Minnesota Legislature in 2003, the permit-to-carry law (sometimes referred to as conceal-carry) upended what had been a long tradition of allowing local law enforcement officials broad discretion in determining who should be allowed to carry a handgun in public. The law adopts a "shall issue" philosophy that assumes an applicant is qualified unless authorities can prove otherwise.
As of last week, more than 67,000 residents held a permit to carry a handgun, according the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
"We're adding about 1,000 permit holders every month," firearm instructor Andrew Rothman said Sunday along the side of Minnesota 55. "At that rate, we'll be at the 100,000 mark in a couple years."
The group included author, firearm instructor and self-described second amendment activist Joel Rosenberg, who in 2003 penned a how-to book for carry permit holders. Rosenberg, 55, of Minneapolis, admitted that, after hearing about the trash-finding event, he couldn't help but think of anti-gun activists.
"I pictured them envisioning us out here on the side of the road using bayonets to pick this stuff up," Rosenberg said while using a stick with a nail to poke a pop can. "Let's just say there are a lot of misconceptions about people like us by folks who don't feel we should have the right to protect ourselves."
After posing by one of their two roadside signs, the group set off in three groups of four. But not before Rosenberg gave some tongue-in-cheek advice: "If you see something with a timer and it looks like it's counting down, walk away," he said.
Pat Cannon, of Minneapolis, seemed to relish in what he found, including a tire iron and a half-filled Cheez-It box.
"Who didn't eat breakfast?" he asked.
Cannon, 56, even stopped to stab cigarettes with his nail-tipped stick.
"The U.S. Army trained me to do this," he said. "It always bothered me because I never smoked."
Then there were the not-so-pleasant things the crew found, like a deer skull and several soda bottles filled with urine.
"I found a green tea bottle," Walberg said, "and what was in there was definitely not green."
Rob Evans, of South St. Paul, was especially proud of his find.
"I just found my cell phone," Evans, 52, said. "It accidentally fell from my jacket about halfway through the walk."
Nick Ferraro can be reached at 651-228-2173.
