Man faces jail for handing in a gun.

[Guitar Gamer]

so that means that the only way to "do the right thing" is to tell the police to come and get the gun?

sounds like they need to make some changes

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Revamp the legal system. NOW!

 

[Dogstile]

That is bull shit. The police should have told him that if he would bring in the gun he would get thrown in jail and that he needs to tell them where the gun is so they can go and pick it up...

When would the police have told him this? When he showed up with the gun? It was already too late then

The guy was pretty stupid, He should have known he cannot just carry around a shotgun because he found it and is turning it in, Criminals could carry around guns all the time, and if caught say "I found this yesterday and was just turning it in!" That would completely ruin the whole system of gun licenses and permits. what he should have done, was call 911 (UK equivalent)

He did call them to tell them that he was going to bring it in.

 

[Nasti]

so that means that the only way to "do the right thing" is to tell the police to come and get the gun?

sounds like they need to make some changes

Sorry, that logic is lost on me. What is wrong with calling the police to get the gun?

EDIT: And what other methods should be allowed?

 

[Nasti]

He did call them to tell them that he was going to bring it in.

This seems extremely unlikely. If he had a converstation with the police they would have told him not to touch it. There is some biased reporting going on IMO.

 

[BonsaiK]

This is messed up.

Linky! [http://www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/news/Ex-soldier-faces-jail-handing-gun/article-1509082-detail/article.html]

So, thoughts, feelings, arguments? Feel free to spew them out below.

Looks a-ok to me.

1. It doesn't say in the article that he told the police that he was coming to hand in a firearm, just that he needed to see someone in the police station.
2. Given than 1. above is true, you don't just pop out a concealed weapon in a police station without prior warning, that's just idjit.
3. By moving the gun and cartridges from their original location he is tampering with evidence, as well as getting his grubby fingerprints on it and possibly also inadvertently removing any prints that were already on the firearm. The exact location is crucial so he's interfered with that too. There may have been other evidence at the scene that he missed. The bin liner is also evidence, he would have had to tamper with that too to remove the firearm. Way to completely stuff up any forensics investigation.
4. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
5. If he's an ex-soldier that makes it even worse, you would think an ex-soldier would know the firearms laws of his own country. Maybe he thought that because he was an ex-soldier he was above the law, or that the laws of his own country somehow don't apply to him. Unfortunately there are a minority of ex-soldiers who do have exactly this kind of superiority complex: "I served my country, I should be able to do [insert stupid activity here]", that kind of thing.

He is a colossal idiot. Not sure if he'll really get five years but he probably deserves something. He certainly doesn't deserve a shred of admiration or respect for this. By doing what he did, he's very likely prevented someone else, a REAL criminal and a REAL threat to the community, from being apprehended.

If there was any grey area at all the jury would have been deliberating for hours, several days is not uncommon in a case like this. If the jury only took 20 minutes to come to a conclusion, that settles it. The guy is a moron.

 

[Guitar Gamer]

so that means that the only way to "do the right thing" is to tell the police to come and get the gun?

sounds like they need to make some changes

Sorry, that logic is lost on me. What is wrong with calling the police to get the gun?

EDIT: And what other methods should be allowed?

well it's not that it's a bad idea but really the chap should be able to call the police up and say
"hey I found a gun"
and have them say
"all right bring it here"
without them then saying when he brings it over
"LOOK OUT HE HAS A GUN!!!" *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
[sup]yes I know they didn't shoot people[/sup]
also I know it seems a little inane but what if the gun is a kind of remote location? and he doesn't exactly know where it is?
"where did you find the firearm?"
"you know....................around"

 

[Xanian]

As a silly American girl, I'm shocked, disgusted, and a little amused. Maybe it's because my kids brother got to own his first gun when he was thirteen or the fact that my Dad carried one when he had to work in LA during the riots, but I don't understand what the big deal is.

This becomes one of those silly scenarios where the law encourages you to disobey it. He either should have left the gun where it lay, chancing that some cheeky school boys pick it up and blow their brains out, or taken it and simply never told anyone.

There should be far more flexibility in the legal system than that, otherwise people are discouraged from interacting on a friendly basis with their legal system and stop trusting it.

 

[ddon]

and i thought the american justice system could be idiotic.

 

[BonsaiK]

As a silly American girl, I'm shocked, disgusted, and a little amused. Maybe it's because my kids brother got to own his first gun when he was thirteen or the fact that my Dad carried one when he had to work in LA during the riots, but I don't understand what the big deal is.

This becomes one of those silly scenarios where the law encourages you to disobey it. He either should have left the gun where it lay, chancing that some cheeky school boys pick it up and blow their brains out, or taken it and simply never told anyone.

There should be far more flexibility in the legal system than that, otherwise people are discouraged from interacting on a friendly basis with their legal system and stop trusting it.

I understand how it may be a little difficult for an American to understand. I'm from Australia where the laws are similar to the UK so it makes perfect sense to me.

If you see an abandoned gun, you don't touch it - you're possibly interfering with evidence, including forensic evidence. Common sense tells you that gun has been abandoned for a reason. That gun might have just been used to kill ten people, or rob a service station, or it might not. Who knows. You ring the police, you follow their instructions. Simple. You don't do what this guy died, which is ring the police, say "I need to see you" and then cart the gun over to them without even telling them that you have a gun until it comes out of your bag, that's MORONIC. Imagine if, instead of a gun, it was a dead body or some other kind of possibly criminal evidence. Do you hand the dead body or the criminal evidence into the police station? No. You ring the police, and you do what they tell you.

 

[Akai Shizuku]

As a silly American girl, I'm shocked, disgusted, and a little amused. Maybe it's because my kids brother got to own his first gun when he was thirteen or the fact that my Dad carried one when he had to work in LA during the riots, but I don't understand what the big deal is.

This becomes one of those silly scenarios where the law encourages you to disobey it. He either should have left the gun where it lay, chancing that some cheeky school boys pick it up and blow their brains out, or taken it and simply never told anyone.

There should be far more flexibility in the legal system than that, otherwise people are discouraged from interacting on a friendly basis with their legal system and stop trusting it.

I understand how it may be a little difficult for an American to understand. I'm from Australia where the laws are similar to the UK so it makes perfect sense to me.

If you see an abandoned gun, you don't touch it - you're possibly interfering with evidence, including forensic evidence. Common sense tells you that gun has been abandoned for a reason. That gun might have just been used to kill ten people, or rob a service station, or it might not. Who knows. You ring the police, you follow their instructions. Simple. You don't do what this guy died, which is ring the police, say "I need to see you" and then cart the gun over to them without even telling them that you have a gun until it comes out of your bag, that's MORONIC. Imagine if, instead of a gun, it was a dead body or some other kind of possibly criminal evidence. Do you hand the dead body or the criminal evidence into the police station? No. You ring the police, and you do what they tell you.

It's still borderline retarded.

In any case, better to just hide the gun in your closet than to phone anyone.

 

[TyrantGanado]

Even if this man was possibly inadvertently tampering with evidence by handing the gun in, the arresting officer and anyone involved with it going through to trial are truly bureaucratic drones and not people. I am resisting a RAGE right now, mainly because I see this kind of crap in our legal system (well, both English and Scottish as they differ slightly) and it's appalling how little we do to deter criminals and how much we do to punish the innocent. The innocent have far more to fear from the law in this country than the low-life criminals. High-end mobsters can still get pretty hard though, with asset seizing.

The worst case is from a couple of years back, a father of seven got jailed for about six years. Why? For hitting, with his car, a yob who was part of a gang that had frequently terrorised the man's neighbourhood, had attempted to attack hiw wife, shouted obscenities at and threatened to attack his children and other residents. The father is still in jail and as far as I know, the yob is free. We are truly a broken society.

 

[BonsaiK]

As a silly American girl, I'm shocked, disgusted, and a little amused. Maybe it's because my kids brother got to own his first gun when he was thirteen or the fact that my Dad carried one when he had to work in LA during the riots, but I don't understand what the big deal is.

This becomes one of those silly scenarios where the law encourages you to disobey it. He either should have left the gun where it lay, chancing that some cheeky school boys pick it up and blow their brains out, or taken it and simply never told anyone.

There should be far more flexibility in the legal system than that, otherwise people are discouraged from interacting on a friendly basis with their legal system and stop trusting it.

I understand how it may be a little difficult for an American to understand. I'm from Australia where the laws are similar to the UK so it makes perfect sense to me.

If you see an abandoned gun, you don't touch it - you're possibly interfering with evidence, including forensic evidence. Common sense tells you that gun has been abandoned for a reason. That gun might have just been used to kill ten people, or rob a service station, or it might not. Who knows. You ring the police, you follow their instructions. Simple. You don't do what this guy died, which is ring the police, say "I need to see you" and then cart the gun over to them without even telling them that you have a gun until it comes out of your bag, that's MORONIC. Imagine if, instead of a gun, it was a dead body or some other kind of possibly criminal evidence. Do you hand the dead body or the criminal evidence into the police station? No. You ring the police, and you do what they tell you.

It's still borderline retarded.

In any case, better to just hide the gun in your closet than to phone anyone.

That'll work fine unless the gun is inadvertently found by a law-abiding citizen or someone finds out you have it and rings the cops. Then police ballistics analyse the gun and link you to a crime that you didn't committ. Then you get a charge for a crime you had nothing to do with AND an illegal firearm possession charge.

In a country where guns are almost completely illegal, you don't just "abandon a gun" because you just bought a better one or you didn't like the colour of the barrel or whatever. People generally abandon guns because those guns could be linked to crimes that carry hefty penalties. If you pick that gun up and don't contact the authorities, you're at best, a fool.

 

[Akai Shizuku]

As a silly American girl, I'm shocked, disgusted, and a little amused. Maybe it's because my kids brother got to own his first gun when he was thirteen or the fact that my Dad carried one when he had to work in LA during the riots, but I don't understand what the big deal is.

This becomes one of those silly scenarios where the law encourages you to disobey it. He either should have left the gun where it lay, chancing that some cheeky school boys pick it up and blow their brains out, or taken it and simply never told anyone.

There should be far more flexibility in the legal system than that, otherwise people are discouraged from interacting on a friendly basis with their legal system and stop trusting it.

I understand how it may be a little difficult for an American to understand. I'm from Australia where the laws are similar to the UK so it makes perfect sense to me.

If you see an abandoned gun, you don't touch it - you're possibly interfering with evidence, including forensic evidence. Common sense tells you that gun has been abandoned for a reason. That gun might have just been used to kill ten people, or rob a service station, or it might not. Who knows. You ring the police, you follow their instructions. Simple. You don't do what this guy died, which is ring the police, say "I need to see you" and then cart the gun over to them without even telling them that you have a gun until it comes out of your bag, that's MORONIC. Imagine if, instead of a gun, it was a dead body or some other kind of possibly criminal evidence. Do you hand the dead body or the criminal evidence into the police station? No. You ring the police, and you do what they tell you.

It's still borderline retarded.

In any case, better to just hide the gun in your closet than to phone anyone.

That'll work fine unless the gun is inadvertently found by a law-abiding citizen or someone finds out you have it and rings the cops. Then police ballistics analyse the gun and link you to a crime that you didn't committ. Then you get a charge for a crime you had nothing to do with AND an illegal firearm possession charge.

In a country where guns are almost completely illegal, you don't just "abandon a gun" because you just bought a better one or you didn't like the colour of the barrel or whatever. People generally abandon guns because those guns could be linked to crimes that carry hefty penalties. If you pick that gun up and don't contact the authorities, you're at best, a fool.

What if there are zombies?

EDIT: On a more serious note, you couldn't know that without taking a law course. No matter how you look at it there's no justification for penalizing this man; all he tried to do was be a good citizen.

 

[Phantomess]

This is insane. The whole fact that he is an ex-soldier - PAID to carry a gun - then gets arrested for turning in a different one makes this all the more mad. Critchlaw is a moron and deserves to be sacked. The police station that let him hand in the firearm deserves to be investigated for their reaction and the display of a leaflet that says citizens can report the firearms. The officer who took the call should have told him that. There's no excuse for incompetance, if they're going to take the view that he has no defence.

 

[Xanian]

Another note, theis guy stabbed a cop and was getting ready to finish her off when another cop shot the guy who was in "progress".

guess what happened:

they fired the cop. and then they fired the stabbed cop for standing up for the other one. (welcome to the most insulated city in the Midwest, Madison Wisconsin.)

Then the family claimed the stabber guy had a mental retardation (duh he was trying to kill a cop) then sued the city for 8 million dollars.

I think our legal system also needs some tweaking

In LA that dude would have had more bullet holes than Swiss cheese by the end of it...and it just would have been a lot of paperwork.

Not to say that he should have been shot 40 times or so...but still...

 

[BonsaiK]

As a silly American girl, I'm shocked, disgusted, and a little amused. Maybe it's because my kids brother got to own his first gun when he was thirteen or the fact that my Dad carried one when he had to work in LA during the riots, but I don't understand what the big deal is.

This becomes one of those silly scenarios where the law encourages you to disobey it. He either should have left the gun where it lay, chancing that some cheeky school boys pick it up and blow their brains out, or taken it and simply never told anyone.

There should be far more flexibility in the legal system than that, otherwise people are discouraged from interacting on a friendly basis with their legal system and stop trusting it.

I understand how it may be a little difficult for an American to understand. I'm from Australia where the laws are similar to the UK so it makes perfect sense to me.

If you see an abandoned gun, you don't touch it - you're possibly interfering with evidence, including forensic evidence. Common sense tells you that gun has been abandoned for a reason. That gun might have just been used to kill ten people, or rob a service station, or it might not. Who knows. You ring the police, you follow their instructions. Simple. You don't do what this guy died, which is ring the police, say "I need to see you" and then cart the gun over to them without even telling them that you have a gun until it comes out of your bag, that's MORONIC. Imagine if, instead of a gun, it was a dead body or some other kind of possibly criminal evidence. Do you hand the dead body or the criminal evidence into the police station? No. You ring the police, and you do what they tell you.

It's still borderline retarded.

In any case, better to just hide the gun in your closet than to phone anyone.

That'll work fine unless the gun is inadvertently found by a law-abiding citizen or someone finds out you have it and rings the cops. Then police ballistics analyse the gun and link you to a crime that you didn't committ. Then you get a charge for a crime you had nothing to do with AND an illegal firearm possession charge.

In a country where guns are almost completely illegal, you don't just "abandon a gun" because you just bought a better one or you didn't like the colour of the barrel or whatever. People generally abandon guns because those guns could be linked to crimes that carry hefty penalties. If you pick that gun up and don't contact the authorities, you're at best, a fool.

What if there are zombies?

EDIT: On a more serious note, you couldn't know that without taking a law course. No matter how you look at it there's no justification for penalizing this man; all he tried to do was be a good citizen.

Not true. It's just common sense. If you see something criminal you ring the police. You don't need a law course to understand that.

Also, maybe the guy isn't a good citizen? Maybe he tampered with the evidence on purpose. We just don't know.

 

[chronobreak]

The worst case is from a couple of years back, a father of seven got jailed for about six years. Why? For hitting, with his car, a yob who was part of a gang that had frequently terrorised the man's neighbourhood, had attempted to attack hiw wife, shouted obscenities at and threatened to attack his children and other residents. The father is still in jail and as far as I know, the yob is free. We are truly a broken society.

If people attempt to take the law into their own hands that is what happens. We don't need a bunch of vigilantes roaming the streets inflicting whatever forms of justice they deem suitable for the situation, like hitting someone with a car. Besides, in even the guy was an asshat and threatened the man, it's still a crime to plow into someone with a vehicle. I wish Ace_Of_Something was feeling well enough to participate in this thread.