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Man cited for firearm possession

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Jesse T:
Here is the rest of the story from cassidy's blog.

A9-035231

Just before 6:00 AM on Saturday, we responded to a disturbance at a Lincoln motel. We arrested the male half of the disturbance because he had an arrest warrant. The female half wanted to take a blanket with her. We found a Ruger .357 Magnum revolver under the blanket she wanted. We also found pot, scales, and packaging materials. The 26 year-old man has an extensive juvenile and adult record, and as an adult has been convicted of possession of marijuana nine times, and assault three times, along with a collection of other offenses like trespassing, destruction of property, and disturbing the peace. Since he has no felony convictions, nothing in State law prohibits him from possessing the gun. Our city ordinance applies, though, so we took it away and added that charge to his arrest. Glad we have the city ordinance.


His latest blog post is about all the firearms related crimes this past weekend.  A very interesting read.

http://lpd304.blogspot.com/2009/04/weekend-cases.html

JimP:
My comments, with the Chief's response:

Hmmmm....... 5+ pages of laws concerning who can carry a firearm or anything resembling a firearm, and the criminals STILL carry them..... MAYBE, if you get 55 pages of laws passed, they'll stop..... oh, wait..... they don't follow the laws anyway......

I wonderin': How would ANY of those incidents mentioned been different if you had no local ordinances stricter than State and Federal laws?

A9-034279 Two felons who would not obey 55 laws any better than 5.

A9-034478 Felon. See above.

A9-034769 You can't outlaw stupidity. You'd be plowing the sea.

A9-035179 Felons being felons. See above. (If it were not so difficult for the law abiding to CCW, maybe you could be posting the names of those "3 suspects, unknown to them", because they are in the hospital or morgue, or not posting anything about the incident, because thugs would move to places less hazardous to them.)

A9-035206 I guess the law against dicharging a firearm in city limits REALLY worked..... um, no. If the perp had been identified, I'm sure there are several other things he/she could have been charged with: disturbing the peace, terroristic threats, assault (if they pointed it anyone), assault with a deadly weapon (if they shot at anyone , but missed)...... none of those things are going to work if no witness will come forward....

A9-035231 You arrested the guy, right? His gun gets confiscated as part of his "operation", no?It is evidence, right? Or do you return the scales and baggies to them when they make bail, too? Just wonderin'....

April 22, 2009 10:14 AM


 Tom Casady said...
Jim, I think you are missing the point. The laws did not prevent these defendants from illegally possessing firearms, but the laws did allow us to arrest them for doing so. We also got to seize their firearms as evidence of the crimes, and they will not get these back. I think it's a small but good thing when a criminal with a gun gets charged with a new crime, and looses his illegally-possessed gun.

I'm not so naive as to think you can deter criminals from obtaining or carrying guns by passing laws, but I sure do like to see them in jail when they do so, with the gun tagged in our evidence room. I'm surprised you wouldn't like that, too.

Regarding A9-035231, possession of less than a pound of marijuana in Nebraska is a misdemeanor. In fact, possession of less than an ounce is an infraction, punishable by a fine not to exceed $100 only. Without the City ordinance, this guy either walks away with his ticket and his gun, or (had we seized it anyway) stands an excellent chance of getting it back when the case is disposed of with a finger-wagging for his 10th pot conviction. With our City Ordinance, his Ruger is on our pegboard, and he's charged with an additional count of illegal possession of a firearm.

April 22, 2009 3:04 PM

JimP:
"With our City Ordinance, his Ruger is on our pegboard, and he's charged with an additional count of illegal possession of a firearm."

.....Oh!....... I get it! You have to make it MORE ILLEGALLERISHSOMEMORE!  A weapon concealed "on or about his person" is not illegal enough to charge him with carrying a concealed weapon.......

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