Surely some enterprizing inventor can come up with a device that blurts out: Don’t be Stupid when a hand gun is out of holster for more that “x period of time”.
Remember the bro-hau hau about the gun with an electronic signal in a wrist band. I'm thinking the cops need to adopt this technology immediately. As a gun owner, that stock photo freaks me out. Hammer cocked which implies a round in the chamber. And the M1911 pistol only has that grip safety, meaning when it is depressed the gun can fire with a trigger pull. And it looks like he’s in a crowd at a convention or mall or some such.
Another “responsible” gun owner bites the dust.
Having learned from the experience of the St. Louis County police, the Memphis police have decided to outsource the task of shooting civilians with department-issued firearms.
No problemo. Plenty more where that one came from.
Prime example of *MGTB
*MoreGunThanBrains
Here’ s hoping the abandoned weapon finds a nice home. /S
Well, that might have saved a black kid’s life, depending on who ended up with it.
Oh, no, check that – as said above
Any chance he’ll be banned from having a weapon in the future? Why, hell no.
I’m not sure the term “stolen” is accurate. He left it somewhere, so it wasn’t “taken” from him, he just lost it. Whomever “found” it may well have kept it, but they didn’t steal it. He’s the idiot here, and there is no way to know what the person finding it did with it. We can assume anything we like, but the only FACT in the story is that he left it in a restroom. That’s not theft under any legal definition. It does, however, qualify as Felony Stupid, a much more serious crime than Misdemeanor Dumb.
You can’t be charged with theft, or with possession of stolen property if the item in question was abandoned willingly. It would nearly impossible to successfully charge someone in this case and make the charge of theft stick. To begin with you’d have to prove intent, and I doubt anyone goes into the restroom intending to pick up a gun that’s been left behind. There generally are laws about the lawful way to claim abandoned property…and they usually include filling a police report and making some minimal effort to notify the proper owner…it used to be placing a notice in the local paper. Otherwise, this isn’t a crime for the finder.
“Where’re ya’ frum?”
“Tennessee.”
Calling this a theft is like calling a 3 year old shooting a 4 year old an “accidental” shooting. They aren’t and this wasn’t a theft but pure negligence.
Why the hell does a mall security guard need to carry a gun? What if a kid went into the restroom and thought the gun was a toy and started pulling the trigger?
If a good guy had found it, he would have given it back. So thanks to actions of this dumb cop, we have another bad guy with a gun.
It would have dominated the next news cycle.