I know that.
So, what does that mean? Absolutely nothing. How is the time of discovery determined? It starts when you want it to start. Three days from now, three months from now, three years from now. You claim ignorance and you’re off the hook? No. Which is why I’m suspicious of the implementation of this sort of law.
How on earth could anyone prove that you knew it was missing earlier than you claimed?
How it work, scenario.
I’m a member of a notorious criminal organization, the SDMB mafia. Most of us have extensive criminal records, assault with intent to educate, unlawful possession of a three digit IQ, associating with Cecil, and a multitude of other crimes against ignorance. As such we aren’t permitted to purchase, own, or even possess firearms.
Enter Neutron Star who by dint of luck and care has avoided acquiring his own rap sheet. We give him a shopping list and a handful of cash and send him on his way. He buys a gun here, a gun there, two or three somewhere else. They run background checks on him for all his purchaces and they all come up clean. He comes back to the hangout and distributes the goods.
Six months down the road Catsix is busted and when they run the serial on the gun he was carrying it comes back registered to N Star. Police ask Mr Star how Catsix happened to be holding a gun registered to him. Sorry officer, my home was broken into last month and all my guns were stolen. Why didn’t I report it? Just too much trouble, sorry about that.
[/scenario]
With this law Mr Star would get his own criminal record, or have drawn official attention much sooner for having so many weapons ‘stolen’ so soon after purchasing them.
My own stance in this argument. As far as I know, none of us have seen the actual text of the amendment, only the summarized version supplied by its supporters. As written it could have been severely flawed to the point of being unenforceable or too easily abused by overzealous officials. The best weapons against ignorance that we have in our arsenal are facts. Let’s get some here.
Exactly. Which is why I don’t believe that this law is as benign as some of you think it is. How can you charge someone with something if the crime is self-reported and the timetable begins and ends with you?
There’s got to be more there. There has to be some sort of enforcement that we’re not seeing. And again, that’s why I’m suspicious of these sorts of laws. They don’t make sense until the first person gets arrested for violating it, and then you realize that you’ve been had.
Can you prove that he knew that I took the guns? What if Mr. Star is my brother and I happen to know that he keeps some pistols in hard sided cases in his basement and that he rarely even looks at them, so he won’t notice if one is missing.
I go over to watch the game with him, and while he’s out on the beer run I take a gun from the basement. Later I commit a crime with it and he never reported that it was missing…
Is he still punished?
Please read the entire scenario before attempting to nit-pick it apart.
Statement to police that he knew his house was broken into and the guns were stolen.
Interesting though that you’re assaulting this post with “what if” questions. That’s the same tactic that was used to defeat the amendment we’re talking about IMHO.
Unless the local PD have some magic mirror that tells them when you’re fibbing, the only use conceivable use for the law is to give them something to charge you with if you murder someone then claim to have had the gun stolen.
Are there instances where the failure to report the theft of other kinds of goods is a crime? (not a rhetorical question)
Regards,
Shodan
To recap:
Stolen goods are very hard to find, and police don’t typically devote forensic resources to solving these crimes because not only is it quite expensive–it is of very limited efficacy. When my father’s storage shed was broken into many years ago (before shows like CSI were common–although Quincy, M.E. was around) there were boot prints all over the wooden door the thief kicked in. There was even a hand print in dirt on the wall inside.
The police at the time said, “you wouldn’t even be able to lift prints off that.” I have no idea if they were lying or not, maybe they could and they just didn’t want to do so. But it’s my impression it’s not quite as easy or automatic to lift prints from everything in existence as television shows commonly portray. Aside from fingerprint evidence, any other form of physical evidence like hair, and fiber are of limited use. One thing police friends of mine like to point out, is there is no magic DNA database that has even a meaningful portion of criminals in it. Say they DID find some sort of DNA evidence, they couldn’t just take it back to the lab and run it against every person ever arrested for a crime in the United States. Fiber evidence would only be comparable to fibers from a suspect–most burglaries you don’t have one of those. Fingerprints are commonly collected from just about anyone who is arrested and there are fingerprint databases, but the police, at least in my experience–seem to suggest it’s not very easy to lift fingerprints. There may be more advanced techniques for lifting prints from more troublesome surfaces–but again, at a certain point it’s cost vs. benefit.
How beneficial is this if we’re expending an immense amount of money to solve what is essentially a property crime? Is it worth using so much funding that we have to cut back on hiring new police officers, making it harder for law enforcement to perform “passive protection” provided by having police patrolling?
I think there is a good reason that the sort of CSI-esque forensics only comes into play in very serious crimes in which the police don’t have any solid leads. (Even a lot of murders, I imagine, the police solve without relying heavily on forensics–although I imagine the prosecutor makes use of forensic evidence in the trial phase.)
Let’s keep in mind, like any property taken in a burglary–the primary use of a gun to the thief is its resale value. It might be sold to someone who wants to use it in a murder, but it’s much more likely it will just be sold to someone who wants to buy a gun at an under-market rate without having to worry about going through legitimate dealers.
I imagine that’s nigh-on-impossible to prove. More than likely, if he was actually just using himself as a front to supply weapons to other criminals, the police would have a much better chance showing that he was illegally distributing/selling firearms on the black market. There are already laws across the country that deal with this behavior.
If they have you for murder, why do they need to charge you with an ancillary crime? So they can tack on a misdemeanor to your 20-to-life sentence? Again, it’s silly. If that’s what it’s for, then it was a waste of time.
You have not succeeded in allaying my suspicions.
Even that is of no use at all. If you DO murder someone with a gun that you own, and they recover the gun, and link it as the murder weapon–you can explain to the police that “as far as you knew, the gun was safe in a chest in your basement. If it is somewhere else, and has been used in a homicide, then it appears it was stolen and you had not noticed it missing until now.”
In most cases where someone is lying through their teeth, there are lots of other things linking them to the crime. For example if the victim is the guy’s wife, the police and even a jury probably won’t buy a story that “my gun happened to have been stolen, without my knowledge, and then ironically used to murder my wife who I happened to take out a $1,000,000 life insurance policy on last week which I planned on using to fund a beach house for me and my mistress in the Caribbean.”
Right. Or they could just say, Y’know, I JUST noticed that gun missing yesterday, but I had to work so I couldn’t report it, I was gonna do it today!
Stupid, useless law with a built in loophole.
First off: it’s “phyrric”.
Secondly, your second scenario isn’t how it goes down in PA. If law enforcement does business that way in Oregon, so be it. If I’m stopped, and a firearm is in plain view, I’ll be asked to step out. Officer will further investigate if I have a CCP, which I do, and to be diligent, the officer will still run a background check on me, and run the SN of said firearm. Background will come back negative for me, weapon will be clear, and so long as I don’t have dye-pack stained $20s in the back seat, am not reeking of pot, and the forearm of the guy I hit and ran on 3 miles up the road isn’t stuck in my grille, I’m on my way.
Without the CCP, I’m now a suspect on a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm-doesn’t matter if it’s stolen or not, and will be going to jail.
Personally, I’d report it immediately, were one of my weapons stolen. I’m also not opposed to waiting periods for paperwork processing. I am opposed to warm and fuzzy feel-good horseshit laws that aren’t worth the paper on which they are printed. Lock up Mr. Gangbanger, even though he came from a disadvantaged situation and it’s only his seventh offense. Fuck him. End the endless appeals, and let sentences be carried out, before everyone associated with the case dies of old age.
[hijack]You need a concealed carry permit in PA to carry a gun in plain view?
In a car, yes.
No it isn’t - it’s “pyrrhic”.
Open carry is legal in PA because state law doesn’t forbid it. However, transport of a loaded handgun is addressed here:
So, as Airman Doors has said, you do need the permit if you have the loaded gun in a car.
Even better, he brings the gun back and during next weeks game replaces it in your hard shelled gun case!
But not if it’s unloaded
If it’s unloaded the ammunition must be clearly delineated from the weapon. The glove compartment does not count. So you have the gun in the front seat, and you have a round of ammunition that fell out of your pocket that you forgot was there after your range session, not even of the same caliber of the gun you have beside you. Guess what? It doesn’t matter. You’re in violation of the law. The cops don’t have the time or the authority to work out your problems, especially when they’re gun related.
So, as a practical matter, if you shoot with any frequency, even if you don’t carry you’ll probably get your permit simply to protect yourself. In any event, I interpreted the question to mean a loaded weapon. Not a big deal.