Well, yes, call the police and maybe put a newspaper over it and watch it.
But taking it home, sealing it in a plastic bag with a box of ammo and stashing it somewhere , making sure your prints are not on anything- might also be a idea.
Dumb idea. What if it’s a murder weapon and vital to bringing a murderer to justice?
I found a gun in my yard.
I called the police, and there was no way in hell I was touching it. It had been thrown there by some drug dealers who were running from the cops and I did NOT want my fingerprints on it.
The cops came and got it. They knew who it belonged to, a Jamaican drug lord who was a pretty bad dude.
You don’t know what kind of crime the gun has been used for. I wouldn’t want to keep it or touch it, but even if it was out in public I’d call the police. I wouldn’t want a kid to come along and get it.
Being the responsible dog owner that I am, I always have a plastic poop bag on me, even if walking around unaccompanied by said dog. I would use the bag as a glove, unload the weapon, put the ammunition in the bag, and stick it in my pocket. I would handle the ammo just like dog poop, turning the bag inside out while it is in my hand, and tie a knot in it. Then I would call the local constabulary and wait for them to arrive. I would return the gun to the exact same position it was in before I picked it up, and start photographing the gun and everything in the immediate vicinity. I would use the 911 line—I personally feel that use of the emergency line would be justified in this case.
Still a bad idea to move the gun at all. The CSI will be all over you on that.
An extremely foolish idea. If it had been used in a crime, you would be concealing evidence. If it hadn’t, and was legal, you would be taking someone else’s property. Even if your prints aren’t on it, how are you going to explain how it got in your house? Why would you even want to do such a thing? Especially the part about the ammo.
What if it’s a murder weapon and the police decide you might be the murderer. As you mentioned above, it could be nothing or it could mean everything.
Even kicking it in the drain or unloading it could get you a tampering charge. For doing nothing could I be charged with negligence if a kid gets it and someone gets hurt? Even if I couldn’t it would weigh heavy on my conscience.
Agreed. But I still feel that the need to neutralize an immediate threat to public safety overrides that concern. I’ll just have to take my spanking. Where’s Loach? We need his input here.
Go through the replies and substitute “brick of cocaine” for “gun” and see what happens. Like, “It isn’t your ***** and you didn’t do anything wrong”.
I feel like the responses here are skewed by the media. How often is a gun “found” that was just lost or whatever? Unless there is a separate reason to suspect it has actually been used in a crime. Its mere existence is not such evidence.
When too many of the replies are about how evil cops want to murder or frame innocent people I just stay out of it.
Perfectly understandable.
Agreed. If I can spot it 50 feet away I’ll change directions.
If you can find a single case in the USA where someone called 911 to report they found a brick of cocaine or a gun and later wound up convicted of possession of said cocaine or gun, I’ll eat my hat.
I don’t think police are perforce evil or that they want to frame people. But I have seen enough police procedural shows to know that for a serious crime (like a murder committed with the gun in question) they cast a wide net for suspects. Among their list will be people who find a body, find an involved weapon, show up at the scene of the crime (for whatever reason) or show at the funeral (they generally videotape them these days) and start winnowing out suspects. The usually stated reason for the wide net is that perpetrators often want to inject themselves in the investigation for various reasons. Almost immediately they will start to winnow out suspects. So if you find the gun you will be dragged into this until they believe you are not involved. Even if you were not involved you still have to prove it. So if you find a gun (or worse a body) at say 10 AM and they know that it wasn’t there at say 6 AM they are gonna want you to prove where you were for those 4 hours before they will leave you alone.
It is not that they are evil or want to frame you - their jobs often constrict their thinking into what I would call a machiavellian (in that in the process it is ok for them to lie to suspects on virtually anything) mode and the often results in limited thinking (beady and little I was told is too political so hopefully these words are acceptable).
When I was young ( a very long time ago (ala star wars) I am sad to say) things were more straight forward (hopefully also acceptable) and they would have taken a brief interview, contact information, thanked you as a good citizen and sent you on your way. (Unless they had some obvious reason to delve deeper.) If they found more reasons to talk to you as the case developed they could always drag you down to the station for a friendly interview(s). In other words you weren’t a suspect until there was actually a reason to consider you as such.
Any information you get from police procedural shows can be guaranteed to be wrong.
If nothing else, a gun is a relatively valuable thing, so even the most careless owners are unlikely to simply drop one somewhere. On top of that, depending on local law and custom, people transporting or carrying their gun will have it in a case, holster, or some other relatively secure place.
Of course, context matters. If you see a rifle sitting next to an open case at a public range, that’s a *little *different than seeing a revolver in a trash can in a neighborhood with a high rate of gang violence.
Since I live in a city in the NE with moderate gun crime rates, relatively strict carry laws, a less-robust “gun enthusiast” culture than in other states, I think it’s safe to assume that a gun on the ground in my neighborhood wasn’t just accidentally dropped there.
Unlikely on both counts.
But as I said, calling the police is the better idea.
I don’t know - i often check interesting ones online for more details and the information on those generally matches the shows - often a bit truncated to fit time frames. A lot of the shows use actual footage of interviews conducted.
Mrs. Thorfinnsson worked for the state labs for a number of years and was peripherally involved in some of the cases covered (which entalied contact with the state police) and she maintained that those were by and large accurate per her conversations with the police.
You dont have to be convicted to have your life ruined. $5000 for bail, two days in jail- loosing that much work time, your picture in the local paper, $5000 for legal fees- all to get your charges dismissed.
Mind you, I think it’s mainly paranoia to think they will arrest you.