Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
This article illustrates the poverty of local gun reporting.
Granted that this crew sounds like a bunch of losers who probably ought to be off the streets, a few points about Minnesota law:
It is legal to own night vision goggles.
It is legal to make your own firearm as long as you don’t sell it. Homemade firearms do not require serial numbers.
It is legal to own a silencer, and to make one yourself, as long as you get the federal tax stamp. Possession itself is not illegal.
It is legal to own a semi-automatic replica of a submachine gun, such as the Uzi that fires one shot per trigger pull.
It is legal to own a real machine gun, if you have the tax stamp.
It is also legal to own a decommissioned rocket propelled grenade launcher (it might be legal to own a firing one, as long as you don’t have the ammo for it, I don’t know). The article doesn’t say which they had.
It is legal to have as many rounds of ammunition as you like.
It is legal to have a separate fire-proof room to store firearms and ammunition. And it’s legal to conceal that room from burglars.
An altered serial number on a gun is a crime and being a drug user in possession of a firearm is a crime. Those crimes are buried beneath the breathless recital of all the non-crimes.
There might be actual crimes here, or it could be a couple of minor offenses and a whole lot of politically correct posturing. It would be nice to have more intelligent reporting so we could tell what’s going on.
I’m not holding my breath.
Joe Doakes
Reporters are supposed to be relentlessly curious, and to try to understand the things they report about. And on many issues they are – including, with some reporters, at some times, on the issue of firearms and 2nd Amendment rights.
But most of the Twin Cities media is no more interested in finding the actual facts than, say, a giggly insecure snarkblogger from somewhere outside Montivideo might be.
Willful ignorance is another good descriptor. Just remember that ignorance is no excuse for a law.
Just remember that ignorance is no excuse for a law.
Back in 1996, Richard Jewel became the focus of the FBI’s investigation of Atlanta’s Olympic Park Bombing. The reason? Law enforcement had found “bomb making” material in his garage. The “bomb making” material was screws and electrical tape.
In his garage.
According to the NY Times:
The investigation by local, state and federal law enforcement officers lasted until late October 1996 and included a number of bungled tactics, including an F.B.I. agent’s effort to question Mr. Jewell on camera under the pretense of making a training film. In October 1996, when it became obvious that Mr. Jewell had not been involved in the bombing, the Justice Department formally cleared him.
What would be nice here would be if the journalist mentioned that what is significant here is not the presence of firearms and ammunition in itself, but rather the presence of an arsenal in the home of someone who was likely to use it in his illicit drugs business. But I’d guess that this is too fine a distinction for someone without discernible expertise in any subject besides AP Style.