WTF!? Ex-soldier faces jail for handing in gun.

[TransformX]

Is this for real?

[Dilitante1]

Just goes to show you that no GOOD deed goes unpunished.....

skipping obligatory dumb firearms laws in "civilized" countries comments

[Dr Mordrid]

S-T-U-P-I-D

That is perhaps the most stupid miscarriage of "justice" I've heard of in months. The prosecutor should be fired and judge should have tossed it in the preliminaries. The jury should suffer public ridicule; put large signs in their yards proclaiming "Here Lives A Stupid Person"

This violates common sense even in the context of a gun control state.

Here it's no crime at all since most all gun laws are aimed at handguns and even those are under risk of being held unconstitutional; DC vs Heller confirmed full 2nd Amendment rights for all purposes and there are two big decisions covering Chocago's laws coming this term that are likely to extend its reach. NY's 1911 Sullivan Act is in the queue to be next. Long arms, save for filling out a paper at original purchase, length and in some cases transportation, are pretty much unrestricted.

Here if you find a long arm you don't have to turn it in or even report it - you can turn it in, put it up for sale on Craig's List (or the local paper) or put it in your gun safe with the satisfaction you've saved a few hundred bucks. I've personally bought and sold long arms at yard sales and flea markets.

For a handgun in most jurisdictions you would turn it in as lost property. If it weren't claimed and you pass the NICS instant check (a toll free phone call too confirm you don't have a felony record) & register it (not required everywhere), you could also keep it.

Those jurisdictions who aren't this way soon will be as those cases in the Supreme Court that would extend Heller are very likely to go gun owners way.

[cjolley]

In the US you couldn't legally do any of those things with the gun he found.

In his statement, he said: "I took it indoors and inside found a shorn-off shotgun and two cartridges.

Though, I agree the charge is ludicrous in this situation..

[MultimediaMan]

Here in the US, if you find an illegal weaopn and turn it in, if it is determined you do not own it, then you are not held liable for turning it in on possessions charges.

There is something in Law School that they apparently don't teach anymore: Totality of Circumstance.

[Dr Mordrid]

I did note length was a factor, but as MMM stated totality of circumstance and plain old common sense should make for a whole other outcome. IMO the UK needs to clarify this law and an appellate court needs to toss this case, with a prosecutorial reprimand attached for not using what we call prosecutorial discretion.

[Brian Ellis]

Common sense, maybe, if such exists in law. Totality of circumstances, not. This is a pure US legal concept.

[Dr Mordrid]

Too bad - Europe could use both in many areas as this case demonstrates. Not that we don't nave pockets of similar stupidity, but at least we're working on it.

[Evildead666]

It won't go that far.
He'll get nothing much..

What I do find astounding, is that he didn't mention why he was coming round to the Police Station on the Phone. At the very least he could have said that he had just found a sawn-off shotgun at the bottom of his garden.

The fact that the law states that you are not allowed to possess a gun is right, the implementation here is pretty crap.
He won't go to jail. If he does, the whole UK will stand up and complain...

edit : at the very worst, his judgement was crap, he shouldn't have touched or taken it from where he found it....not worth 5 years tho, a slap on the wrist, don't do it again...

[Dr Mordrid]

He shouldn't even get that. A lack of common sense on all parts does not make it right.

[Evildead666]

Its mostly a lack of common sense on his part.
It was in his garden, he could have called the police from home, and asked them to come round, saying he had spotted a bin bag at the bottom of his garden, and upon closer inspection, there was a firearm in it, a shotgun.

By touching and transporting the object, he ruined any chance of forensic evidence...

edit : The police were probably a bit peeved that he brought it into a Police station without mentioning it beforehand ....i'm not surprised they wanted to make a little scene out of it so other people don't make the same mistake.

If you fond something that looked like a bomb ( not that anyone has ever seen one, a real one) would you think it sane to pick it up and wander off with it ? No.

Same for suspicious firearm found in bottom of garden....

[Dr Mordrid]

Sorry, but laws like this just show why the term Eurotwit was invented and is used on this side of the pond.

[Fluff]

How embarassing.

[Brian Ellis]

Sorry, but laws like this just show why the term Eurotwit was invented and is used on this side of the pond.

But if, as you say, you can do what you like with a firearm you find, that makes the US law just as twittish, because that firearm was probably used to commit a crime (otherwise it would not be discarded) and you would destroy any evidence related to it.
I would not like to be indicted for murder because the police found a gun, with my fingerprints on it, in my house, when it had been used to bump off my next-door neighbour with whom I had had a row over their noise-making, and had been chucked over the garden fence.

The law should state loud and clear that any found gun or other weapon must never be touched and must be reported without delay to the police.

Perhaps we should start using the term Amerotwit for all the crazy applications of the more stupid laws in the USA, such as indicting 5-y.o. kids for p0rn and violent crime, not to mention your liberal (yes, liberal) gun laws.