A South Carolina man was arrested in New York today for, among other things, having a gun. According to the UPI report, he was carrying a S&W .45 handgun and a Tec-9, along with 34 bullets. I'm assuming that the added machine gun charge was for the Tec-9, and he was also charged with possession of a defaced firearm, so I guess someone had tried to destroy the serial number on one of his guns.
This is one of the quandaries I run into when I consider the right to keep and bear arms. I run the risk of being a Fudd and saying "I don't approve of that gun, so he was wrong". I hate it when that thought creeps into my head. A right is a right, even if I don't agree with what he was doing.
Now, if the "machine gun" part of this is that he had modified the Tec-9 to be fully automatic, then he's wrong. If he had well and truly tried to destroy the serial numbers on a weapon, he's wrong.
But he's not wrong for just having the guns, assuming that he is legal to have a gun in his home state in the first place. Yes, New York is a gun-unfriendly state, and as a gun owner he was responsible for knowing the laws where he was going. But the whole reason we have to have things like HR 822 is that our rights should be recognized equally throughout the states, be they the right to keep and bear arms, or the right to attend or not attend church, or the right to write a smartass blog.
This guy may not be a choir boy, and if he has broken the law, I hope that justice is served. But the simple act of carrying a gun shouldn't be a crime.
2 comments:
He didn't have a machine gun. To believe he had a machine gun you would also have to believe that the NYPD could have arrested this guy at 5:25PM on Sunday, hustled the gun down to the forensics lab, loaded it up and function tested it all in time to get out a press release so that it could be reported in the papers this morning.
Either the cops work at light speed in NYC, or they put out a BS lie in a press release. Which sounds more likely?
I've got a dollar that says a turnstile jumper with a S&W .45 and a Tec-9, in town from South Carolina, has a pretty interesting criminal history.
But you are right. I should be able to sling an AR over my back and ride the rails all over NYC without being hassled. As for turnstile jumping, "Book 'em, Danno!"
(I know, wrong location. I never watched any 70's NY Cop shows as a kid)
In Ohio, a gun other than a .22 with a magazine that holds more than 30 rounds is considered a machine gun. I wonder if it's something similar.
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