As I’ve said many times before here on this blog, I’m a big believer in gun ownership, or at least the right thereof.
I don’t have any of my guns here with me in the condo, but I have two 12 gauge shotguns, a 22 semi-automatic rifle, a clip feed bolt action 22 magnum, and a lovely 30-06 “sniper” rifle residing comfortably in a closet on our farm where they can be quite useful when called upon.
As a kid I had water pistols and cap pistols and BB guns laying around all over the place, something that today’s society is frowning on more and more. Like all young boys in the 1960's, we played politically incorrect games like “cowboy’s and injuns” and “Army” in the woods beside our house.
Apparently such games are the source of scorn now from the “neighborhood Nazis.” As I understand it, now just pointing your finger at another kid and saying “bang bang” can get you tossed out of school in a heartbeat.
People have become so hypersensitive to the appearance of anything that even remotely resembles a real weapon, and the politicians and law enforcement has happily accommodated the hysteria with new laws and legal interpretations that border on ridculous.
That said, take a look at this story about two guys misfortune for possessing a water pistol:
MELBORNE, Fla.--Brevard County authorities said two furniture delivery men were arrested for pointing a water gun at a passing motorist.
The frightened woman thought it was a real gun and pulled into a store to call police.
Authorities tell the newspaper Florida Today that the driver pointed the water gun at the woman as a joke but said she didn't know that.
The two men were delivering furniture at a nearby residence when deputies stopped them. Their names aren't being released.
The woman positively identified the men and said she wants to press charges.
Authorities said it's a felony if someone points an object at another person and they reasonably believe it's a gun.
I’m just going to let this story lie there and fester in the sunlight as a stinking example of how low we’ve sunk as a panty-waisted society full of blubbering morons.
OK...let me reiterate their main point...“it’s a felony if someone points an object at another person and they reasonably believe it’s a gun…”
Testing that hypothesis, if you were a mindless, blithering, anti-gun idiot, and I drove past and pointed THIS at you...
Would YOU seek to have me jailed?
Yeah...I thought so...
2 comments:
Well unfortunately this is not the society of 50 years ago when owning a gun was for protection, and most people didn't because they didn't even have to lock their doors. No, today's society is one in which children as young as 5 bring weapons into school, scorned employees shoot up their co-workers, drive by shootings kill innocent bystanders, and grandchildren kill their grandparents that have cared for them their whole lives in their sleep. Not to mention outrageous, frivolous lawsuits. Unfortunately these are the measures that must be taken to protect the public from the thugs, idiots, and scam artists. Although I do agree that arresting everyone and kicking kids out of school is a bit over zealous because those that want guns for ill means will get them no matter what, where should the line be drawn? That's why there is zero tolerance.
As far as I understand the law, your 'cucumber gun' couldn't get you in trouble, because it resembles a cucumber with a trigger as opposed to a gun.
I do know of people who have been arrested for threatening other people with very real looking waterguns. (That's why every watergun is required to have an orange "barrel" by law. That's also why SuperSoaker started making waterguns that looked like brightly colored alien devices.)
The problem was, in all actuality, that people behaving in such ways with waterguns were ending up shot by police or passerby who were armed with real guns & couldn't tell the difference. Those people (if they lived) or their families (if they didn't) started suing citizens and police departments for gunning down watergun-wielding assailants.
Some genius crooks also discovered a while back that if you robbed a store while using a real looking watergun, they couldn't prosecute you for 'armed robbery.' Thus the laws that originated that allowed folks to be prosecuted for threatening people with something that reasonably appeared to be a gun.
I'm a 2nd Amendment believer, and, yeah, these laws sound really convoluted. But that's what happens when people don't respect guns or the appearance of guns. (Which is IMHO, the real gun problem in this country.)
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