Whipped Cream Difficulties

This morning’s Linkswarm covered that story that’s been going around about the reporter who thought it was easier to buy a gun than to buy cold medicine. (Spoiler: she apparently didn’t realize you have to fill out a Form 4473 and go through a background check to buy a gun. The story is being presented as “she failed the check”, but the way I read it, the check was never done because the address on her driver’s license did not match her home address.)

Here’s a flip side to this story. Some background: a guy was arrested in one of our local parks earlier this week. He was carrying multiple weapons: “a loaded 9 mm handgun with an extra magazine, a collapsible baton, two knives, and an assault-style rifle loaded with a 30-round magazine and fitted with a stand, scope and tactical light.”

Ignore for the moment the question of what “an assault-style rifle” is (I haven’t been able to find any photos of the rifle in question, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it turned out to be a tarted-up 10/22). The gentleman in question was charged with “unlawfully carrying a handgun and a baton and deadly conduct”. He also had an arrest warrant out of Harris County.

More background: Michael Cargill owns a local gun shop, Central Texas Gun Works. Mr. Cargill is a prominent local Second Amendment advocate, who is frequently quoted in the local media when they run gun related stories.

Mr. Cargill sold the gentleman his rifle about a month ago. Now, it doesn’t exactly look good to be selling guns to folks who have open felony arrest warrants for domestic violence. But Mr. Cargill has an explanation for this, and it’s a doozy:

…he sold Broesche the rifle in July after waiting three days for a background check. Cargill said the felony warrant should have prevented Broesche from purchasing the gun but it didn’t come up in the check.

…

Cargill blamed that lapse on courts in Houston, which he said did not notify the National Instant Criminal Check System that Broesche had been charged with a felony. “When you have a warrant for your arrest,” Cargill said, “that triggers a denial for purchasing a firearm.”
Courts, sheriff’s offices and other local law enforcement agencies across the state often fail to notify the background check system of charges or when people are released from jail on bail, Cargill said. He said he frequently sees people’s applications to purchase a gun delayed because of an arrest, but the National Instant Criminal Check System’s database sometimes doesn’t include additional information related to the disposition of the cases, which can determine whether they are eligible to purchase a firearm.

See also.

Nut graph:

Cargill said state leaders need to ensure that current gun laws are being followed, rather than create new ones.

So the courts aren’t reporting information that impacts background checks. Meanwhile, the usual suspects are calling for “red flag laws”, when we can’t even trust the police to get the right person anymore than we can trust the government to list the right people on the no-fly list.

Harvey took pictures from her car of Ra holding the gun, and eventually drove to a police station where she reported the incident. Ra reported the incident three hours later. Because Harvey filed her report first, Detroit police treated her as the victim, per department policy. Harvey was never charged for driving her vehicle into Ra’s.

First one to call the cops wins.

Siwatu-Salama Ra was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and committing a felony while in possession of a firearm. Her conviction was just overturned by the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Andrew Branca did a good post on Monday (that I missed) over at Legal Insurrection about the Michael Drejka case: the trial has started.

You might know the Drejka case better as the “handicapped parking space shooting”. Trying to summarize as objectively as I can: Mr. Drejka confronted Markeis McGlockton’s girlfriend about being parked illegally in a handicapped parking space. Mr. McGlockton intervened and shoved Mr. Drejka to the ground: Mr. Drejka, apparently believing he was in a vulnerable position and subject to further attack by Mr. McGlockton, shot and killed him.

Mr. Drejka was not initially charged: the local sheriff stated that he believed this was a legitimate case of self-defense. A month after the shooting, Mr. Drejka was charged with manslaughter.

As I’ve noted here and elsewhere, this is not a clear cut case of either lawful self-defense or an unlawful killing. Reasonable people can look at the same evidence and come to differing conclusions on guilt or innocence. It’s thus perfectly reasonable for some people to believe Drejka was justified in firing that shot. It is also perfectly reasonable for the State Attorney to believe there exists enough evidence inconsistent with self-defense to bring the matter to trial and have a jury decide the matter. This is the system working, folks.

Bonus: CNN debunking.

There’s an article in today’s NYT about Anwar Ghazali. Mr. Ghazali was convicted of second degree murder a few days ago.

What did he do? He shot a 17-year-old who shoplifted some beer from the convenience store Mr. Ghazali was clerking at.

You should apply the usual NYT gun related story discount to this article, but I think there are some illustrative lessons to be learned here.

Dorian Harris, 17, grabbed a few cans of Spiked Watermelon beer from a cooler in the Top Stop Shop in Memphis last year. He ran out the door without paying, dropping one in his haste. The store clerk grabbed a handgun and chased him, firing off a few shots into the dark night, on March 29, the authorities said.

So the guy was running off, he wasn’t a fleeing armed felon who could endanger others, and Mr. Ghazali was (by this account) out of danger. Why did he grab a gun and pursue? I’m not a lawyer, much less a Tennessee one, but I’m pretty sure grabbing a gun and pursuing a person who is in flight, and poses no immediate threat to you or others, takes you outside of “castle doctrine” and into “the DAs likely going to charge you – that is, if you don’t get shot by the cops while you’re running down the street waving a gun” territory.

The store clerk grabbed a handgun and chased him, firing off a few shots into the dark night, on March 29, the authorities said.
“I think I shot him,” the clerk, Anwar Ghazali, 29, told a customer when he returned to the store, according to a police affidavit and the Shelby County District Attorney’s office.

“I think I shot him.” So he was spraying shots into “the dark night”?

Always be sure of your target and what is beyond it. What if he had hit an innocent person in a house or apartment nearby?

But he did hit somebody.

Mr. Harris’s body was discovered two days later in a nearby yard, where he had bled to death from a gunshot wound in the back of his left leg, the district attorney’s office said, and Mr. Ghazali was arrested.

And:

Mr. Ghazali didn’t call the police, the authorities said.

If he had called the police, there’s a pretty good chance they would have found Mr. Harris, stopped the bleed, gotten medics out there, Mr. Harris would be alive today, and Mr. Ghazali wouldn’t have been charged with murder. (Admittedly, I haven’t seen the autopsy report, which is why I qualify that with “pretty good chance”.)

Also on point: in a defensive gun use, even if you just display the gun without actually using it, first one to call 911 wins. Massad Ayoob’s writings contain more than one story of someone who legitimately displayed a weapon to deter a threat, and found themselves on the wrong end of a police investigation and legal bills. If I remember correctly (I don’t have the book here at work) Chris Bird’s Thank God I Had a Gun contains a story like this that ended “well”: in that the defensive gun user avoided prison time, but still racked up legal fees and other consequences.

So that’s my takeaways: don’t shoot people who aren’t an imminent threat to life, don’t shoot blindly into the dark, and call the police. Did I miss any salutary points? Feel free to mention my many shortcomings in comments below.