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July 14, 2019, 05:04 PM | #1 |
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72yr old Mass. Attorney Fails To Report Stolen Gun Fast Enough
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/at...ort-the-theft/
An attorney with a license to carry met a delightful woman at a strip club and brought her home. Eventually, he noticed six of his firearms were missing. Embarrassed, he delayed reporting them stolen until July 9th. On July 11th, one of the firearms was involved in an attempted shooting of a police officer. Because he did not report the theft within 72 hours, he is now being charged with a crime, has lost his license to carry, and police have seized his remaining firearms. I thought this example might be a good opportunity to discuss what our moral responsibility is, as well as whether this particular law is just. ETA: Apparently this happened in Connecticut and not Massachusetts. Last edited by Bartholomew Roberts; July 15, 2019 at 12:09 PM. |
July 14, 2019, 06:55 PM | #2 |
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Seems more like the overreach of the authorities that needs to be discussed. Why were the rest of his guns seized?
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July 14, 2019, 06:58 PM | #3 |
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Punishment of the victim. Ridiculous, but this is the way it’s going.
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July 14, 2019, 08:21 PM | #4 | ||
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July 14, 2019, 09:19 PM | #5 |
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This is the warped, twisted way that Mass. people think.
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July 14, 2019, 09:25 PM | #6 |
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"Someone stole some of your guns? We better take the rest and throw you in prison!"
Yeah, doesn't sound so great. |
July 14, 2019, 09:45 PM | #7 |
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Tell me someone, how did this law stop a gun crime?
Well I guess two crimes for the price of one is even better than before. |
July 14, 2019, 10:54 PM | #8 | |
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Properly, I suppose, to cover my tail I should have called and reported them -- not as "stolen," but as unaccounted for. But I live alone and the house hadn't been broken into, so I was sure the missing pieces would turn up eventually. And they did. Had I reported that I had misplaced a few firearms, I have no doubt that the State would have declared me unfit to own firearms, cancelled my carry license, and confiscated my (ahem) "collection." FWIW, the article in the link is about Connecticut, not Massachusetts. |
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July 15, 2019, 02:01 AM | #9 |
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Seems to me a motel room would have been cheaper in the long run...
WA's latest gun law gives us 5 days to report gun theft or face legal consquences… 5 days from the day we knew or should have known... gahh, I hate phrases like that in law...
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July 15, 2019, 09:37 AM | #10 | |
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Unfortunately, this guy displayed poor judgment across the board, and now advocates for these laws have all the ammunition they need to claim said laws protect public safety. These laws are, for the most part, predatory measures designed to catch gun owners in statutory traps. What happens if I go on vacation on the 1st, my house gets burglarized on the 2nd, but I don't get home until the 10th?
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July 15, 2019, 11:23 AM | #11 | |
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But ... some overzealous prosecutor might try to claim that the 72-hour law requires that the guns should have been inventoried first and a separate report filed for those within the 72-hours. I have not heard of that happening in any of the states that have such reporting laws, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't happened (or won't happen). But, suppose you go on vacation and you left a door unlocked? Someone was able to walk in without any signs of breaking in, and you left a handgun or three on your workbench when you went on vacation. It might be a week or more after you return before you even realize there was a burglary, and you might not miss those guns for a month or more. Maybe over the course of a vacation you forget they were on the workbench, and by the time you get home you just assume they are in the gun safe, where they normally live. You don't realize they are missing until the next time you go shooting, when you open the safe and see a couple of empty spaces where there should be guns. Then you spend a few days looking around the house to see where you might have left them before finally remembering that you had left them on the workbench when you went on vacation, and they weren't there whenever you got back to the workbench after the vacation. The answer to when did you know is clear; less clear is when you "should have known" that a gun or three had gone walkabout. Last edited by Aguila Blanca; July 15, 2019 at 08:12 PM. Reason: Typos |
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July 15, 2019, 04:04 PM | #12 | ||
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But even had he reported the loss, how could it have protected anything? Quote:
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July 15, 2019, 05:23 PM | #13 |
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The thing is, he DID report the loss. And he did it before the pistol was used in a crime, so it wasn’t just a “I’ve been caught, I’d better report it” thing. He lost his carry license, lost his remaining guns, and was arrested because he didn’t report it fast enough.
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July 15, 2019, 06:37 PM | #14 |
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immoral actions on both parts. people get the government they allow.
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July 15, 2019, 06:43 PM | #15 |
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The gun owner doesn’t seem to be real smart, at least by attorney standards. The article doesn’t state when the timeline of events began except for sometime last year. So that means the shortest possible time span before reporting the crime was 7 months, but probably much longer.
That is incredibly irresponsible and negligent. It is a law in his state that he broke. I’m not a fan of this law, but it’s law nonetheless. I’m no law enforcement professional, so I’m not sure that these guns would have been found before any other crime was committed if he had reported them missing right off. There would have been a prime suspect based on the article. Could have gone differently: guns missing, call police, police talk to suspect(s) and maybe the find out where the guns went. The timing of the owner reporting the crime being so close to the time that a crime was committed with one of them is suspicious to me, especially considering the guns were stolen 7-19 months before. This seems to me to be the exact thing that the spirit of the law was intended to prevent. Support the law or not, it was meant to prevent the crime. If it would have worked or not, we can only speculate. |
July 15, 2019, 10:31 PM | #16 | |
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The report says he met the woman last year, but gives no indication that the theft occurred at that time. The report uses the words "visiting" and "dating" which are plurals implying it was a multiple time thing, and ongoing for some time. I don't, at this time, see anything that states when he discovered the guns missing, it could have been anytime between when they first met until July 5 (more than 72 hours before he reported the theft on July 9) We just don't know. My best guess is that he delayed reporting out of fear of embarrassment, not knowing there was a 72hr requirement, and probably told police the actual time he found them missing without knowing he had broken the reporting time law. What kind of lawyer (or anyone else) who knew they broke the law would voluntarily self incriminate? IF that was the case there might be some legal scramble down the road over admissibility of his incriminating statement, etc, but right now we simply don't have much beyond a "sound byte" headline.
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July 16, 2019, 07:54 PM | #17 |
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This law does nothing except turn victims into criminals so their guns can be taken.
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July 16, 2019, 08:04 PM | #18 | |
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My problems with this kind of law is #1) an arbitrary time limit, #2) "should have known" language in the law, and especially #3) blanket criminal penalties. It would also be a very, very bad thing if they passed a law with a criminal penalty for failing to report tragic boating accidents in a timely manner..
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All else being equal (and it almost never is) bigger bullets tend to work better. |
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July 16, 2019, 09:02 PM | #19 | |
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Now... judges, presidents, governors, legislators, media and corporations know completely what they are doing and they still don’t care. Expect more laws like this around the country. Gun owners have lost their political clout and refuse to battle these gun laws politically with any real fervor. TFL keeps informing me that they will never take guns or ban any types of weapons but yet it still keeps happening. Wake up people... the patriots are gone. People all over are willing to march in the streets for their cause even when things happen to residents of other states. Gun owners don’t care what happens outside of their safe zone, we just have some tired old cliches and something something second amendment something. |
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July 16, 2019, 09:48 PM | #20 | |||
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I was interested to see that subparagraph (b) includes this: Quote:
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July 16, 2019, 10:00 PM | #21 |
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I gather since there was multiple guns stolen, then it probably counted as more than one offense. I’m just guessing though.
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