Prison for driving with flintlock pistol?

Arcade22 said:
When it comes to sentencing judges should always have a large amount of freedom to choose the "reasonable" punishment to avoid ruthless punishment of highly innocuous and petty crimes.
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Works bad the other way too, it's amazing how often the perp in a fatal shooting here (and only 35% or so of them get caught) turns out to be a gangbanger with multiple felonies on his record including gun offenses yet never served more than a few months in jail. A guy a few years ago who shot 13 people in a park had been sentenced to boot camp for his previous shooting incident less than a year prior.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think boot camp is going to have much effect on a gangbanger who likes to shoot at anyone he thinks might be from a rival gang.
 
And to think Burr and Hamilton actually went to Jersey to avoid the harsh gun laws in New York.
 
Ranb said:
This is new. A while back you suggested that guns were "only for specialised purposes by trained professionals."
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I've always maintained that there existed legitimate reasons for private gun ownership. Just that the nebulous concept of "self-defence" wasn't one of them.

I'm sure you can probably find a quote of me saying that though. It sounds like something I'd say, in the context of certain discussions.
 
Ranb said:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=10313439#post10313439
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That was a little while ago, but yeah, I stand by that statement in that context. In other contexts I would have chosen different words.

Ranb said:
So should collecting relics that probably pose no threat to anyone be reserved for those few you deem worthy?
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I already said that I have no problem with someone collecting historical relics. Why do you want me to say it again?
 
Was this item capable of launching lumps of lead out of the front of it at deadly velocity? Surely it's the function not the form that matters?
 
3point14 said:
Was this item capable of launching lumps of lead out of the front of it at deadly velocity?
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No one is claiming that it is a functional firearm yet as far as I know. It probably is unless the flash hole was plugged.

Surely it's the function not the form that matters?
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In the USA (and a few other countries like England) firearm relics are exempt from some gun control laws while muzzle loading black powder firearms have far fewer regulations. New Jersey is one of those rare states that controls guns using loose black powder and air rifles as real firearms. This makes the state seem backwards in the eyes of some, including myself. This is the reason for the OP.

Ranb
 
Ranb said:
No one is claiming that it is a functional firearm yet as far as I know. It probably is unless the flash hole was plugged.


In the USA (and a few other countries like England) firearm relics are exempt from some gun control laws while muzzle loading black powder firearms have far fewer regulations. New Jersey is one of those rare states that controls guns using loose black powder and air rifles as real firearms. This makes the state seem backwards in the eyes of some, including myself. This is the reason for the OP.

Ranb
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One of the sidebars to this is that a state legislator is proposing an amendment to bring NJ to some modern standards. I'm generally in the anti-gun nutter camp, but I can't see the threat from these bits of history, collectors items and replicas. Unless they can show that street hoods are carrying AK47s that are exact replicas of 200 year old artifacts, it's rather silly to have them lumped into the same category.

(See, gun-huggers.... some of us aren't totally frothing at the mouth crazy. Yeah, I still get frightened and squeal like a little girl at the sight of a firearm, but that's 60 years of Librul Training. :p )
 
Ranb said:
No one is claiming that it is a functional firearm yet as far as I know. It probably is unless the flash hole was plugged.


In the USA (and a few other countries like England) firearm relics are exempt from some gun control laws while muzzle loading black powder firearms have far fewer regulations. New Jersey is one of those rare states that controls guns using loose black powder and air rifles as real firearms. This makes the state seem backwards in the eyes of some, including myself. This is the reason for the OP.

Ranb
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If one can stuff black powder, wadding and projectile into it, pull the triger and kill somone some distance away with the resultant supersonic (ish) missile then it is a real firearm. Perhaps not a very good one by modern standards but an actual firearm with deadly potential.
 
WildCat said:
Works bad the other way too, it's amazing how often the perp in a fatal shooting here (and only 35% or so of them get caught) turns out to be a gangbanger with multiple felonies on his record including gun offenses yet never served more than a few months in jail.
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Honestly that's more a testament to the failure of restricting access to firearms and inability to counteract violent gang-culture if anything. Again, the point is to avoid harsh sentences for petty crimes.
 
3point14 said:
Was this item capable of launching lumps of lead out of the front of it at deadly velocity? Surely it's the function not the form that matters?
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3point14 said:
If one can stuff black powder, wadding and projectile into it, pull the triger and kill somone some distance away with the resultant supersonic (ish) missile then it is a real firearm. Perhaps not a very good one by modern standards but an actual firearm with deadly potential.
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Yep.

If the cop had shot the guy, we'd be hearing all about how even an old gun is a deadly weapon, and how the cop was justified, even if the flintlock was unloaded.
 
3point14 said:
If one can stuff black powder, wadding and projectile into it, pull the triger and kill somone some distance away with the resultant supersonic (ish) missile then it is a real firearm. Perhaps not a very good one by modern standards but an actual firearm with deadly potential.
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Those flintlock pistols can't push a typical lead ball faster than 1000 fps as far as I know, but are still lethal. When I said "real" I meant in a legal sense.

Ranb
 
marplots said:
Yep.

If the cop had shot the guy, we'd be hearing all about how even an old gun is a deadly weapon, and how the cop was justified,
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If the situation got to the point where the cop even had a gun drawn, this would be a completely different story from start to finish.

So yes, if the situation was completely different, people's opinions would be different.

even if the flintlock was unloaded.
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"Even if the flintlock was unloaded?"

You do realize that the number of people who drive around with loaded flintlocks is pretty damn close to zero, right?
 
Cleon said:
"Even if the flintlock was unloaded?"

You do realize that the number of people who drive around with loaded flintlocks is pretty damn close to zero, right?
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Doesn't matter. It's the perception of threat that matters, not the actual threat. Which was my point.

Basing an argument on the status of the firearm as antique, or collectable, doesn't remove the "deadly device" status, and that's the status used to justify a lethal, self-defense response. And that's the attribute triggering the law, isn't it? What purpose, other than protecting citizens and cops, could such a law have?
 
Arcade22 said:
Honestly that's more a testament to the failure of restricting access to firearms and inability to counteract violent gang-culture if anything. Again, the point is to avoid harsh sentences for petty crimes.
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I don't think shooting at a rival gang member suddenly becomes a "petty crime" if you happen to miss. Here's a guy who has allegedly committed 3 murders despite convictions for violent crimes:
A man awaiting trial for murder was charged with two additional murders this week after police linked DNA evidence to a 2012 case.

...Matthews has been in jail since July 2012, when he was charged with murder in a 2009 case and held without bail, Santini said.

...Matthews was previously convicted of aggravated battery in 2007 and 2008, prosecutors said. He also picked up convictions for possession of a controlled substance in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
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"aggravated battery" almost always means a gun was involved and fired, though it could be a knife or other weapon. So here we have a guy who was likely convicted of shooting at someone in 2007 and 2008, and who was out on the street in 2009 to kill another person and who killed 2 more in 2012.

Don't you think that shooting at people should get you a sentence a bit longer than time served in county jail awaiting trial?

eta: and the gun laws have little to do with it, the terrorist in Denmark who went on a shooting spree recently had been out of prison for just 2 weeks and managed to obtain a firearm that wasn't legal in the country.
 
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ponderingturtle said:
But is any of this hypothosis true, or would he need to transport it in a gun case or the trunk, and not in a cloth in the glove compartment? From what Rand has shown if it was in the trunk this wouldn't have been an issue. But as it was in the glove compartment and then he got out his papers and flashed it at the cop it seems pretty clear what the problem might have been.
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Thanks for the response, but I still think that it actually supports what I was saying earlier.

After all, if the New Jersey gun law is so broad that it covers how an unloaded, antique, and probably unusable weapon must be transported, then that law does sound unconstitutional to me.

As for putting the weapon in the trunk of a car or in a locked box, I agree that is good practice, but it is not always a practical way to do so.

For example, I have a hatch back car that does not have a seperate locking trunk, nor do I have a locking box that is big enough to house all of these weapons. Therefore, a few weeks ago when I took several firearms to the shooting range then I could have been cited for doing so.

Unless, I had a concealed weapons permit, then apparently the rules about how weapons are transported do not apply.

Ugh! This case just keeps getting stranger the more that I consider it.
 
arthwollipot said:
That was a little while ago, but yeah, I stand by that statement in that context. In other contexts I would have chosen different words.

I already said that I have no problem with someone collecting historical relics. Why do you want me to say it again?
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If I may interject ...

Unfortunately, there are a few people who make all sorts of irrational posts when they think that someone is saying something negative their precious firearms.
 
Crossbow said:
Unfortunately, there are a few people who make all sorts of irrational posts when they think that someone is saying something negative their precious firearms.
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Like that any certain firearm is illegal to possess in the USA when the person making the claim has no rational reason to believe it is true?

Ranb
 
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