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1.) Swamp Fox - 02/18/2015
This just in:


[SIZE=2][B]Arrested and Facing Felony Charges For Pre-Revolutionary War Pistol [/B][/SIZE]

[I]...

For transporting a 300-year-old flintlock pistol without a concealed-carry license, [72-year old retired schoolteacher and antiques buff] Van Gilder has been charged with a second-degree felony — specifically, with “unlawful possession of a handgun” — and he is facing a maximum of ten years in state prison. This, he suggests, is “unbelievable.”


The gun in question, Van Gilder says, “was probably made about 1765 in Belgium — for the British market.” A dealer found it in Pennsylvania, and held it for him. “I paid $800 for it. It’s a boxlock pistol, so there’s no hammer. It’s beautiful.”

Having picked the gun up, Van Gilder and his friend first went to lunch, and then they headed home. “My friend was driving because my arm is shot,” Van Gilder recalls. On the way home, the pair were pulled over by a local sheriff. According to Van Gilder, the detaining officer told him that he wanted to search the car, and threatened him with dogs if he refused. “I didn’t mind,” he tells me, but he wanted to make sure that the officer knew that there was a flintlock pistol in the glove compartment, and that he had just purchased it. “Oh, man,” Gilder says. “Immediately, he wanted to arrest me. But when he called the undersheriff, he was told, ‘No, it’s a 250-year-old pistol; let him go.’”

The officer did as he was told, and gave the pistol back. The next morning, however, he came back — “with three cars and three or four sheriffs.” Van Gilders says, “He told me, ‘I should have arrested you last night.’” So he did. “They led me away in handcuffs” and, at the station, “chained me by my hands and feet to a cold stainless-steel bench.”

“I’ve never been handcuffed in my life — or arrested, even,” Van Gilder explains. “I was embarrassed and ashamed. The only prisoner there was myself: a 72-year-old English teacher. I was really ashamed.”
Before long, Van Gilder had been charged and the gun had been taken away for “ballistics testing,” almost certainly never to be returned. (That the department believes that a ballistics test on a flintlock pistol can be useful should give you some indication of who we’re dealing with here.) “They’ve angered me,” Van Gilder concedes. “But technically, by New Jersey’s law, the officer was probably right.”

That, sadly, is true. Indeed, according to Van Gilder’s lawyer, Evan Nappen, Gordon has fallen foul of a “fundamental flaw” in New Jersey’s law. “Classifying this pistol as a weapon,” Nappen says, “is absolutely absurd. We’re talking about a crime that carries a minimum mandatory sentence of between three and a half and five years.”

The federal government, Nappen notes, “doesn’t even consider this gun a weapon.” (By the terms of the 1968 Gun Control Act, few firearms manufactured prior to 1898 are subject to federal law.) “This is an original flintlock that predates the founding of the country, and was made before New Jersey’s laws were passed. But they’re treating it the same as if it were a .44 Magnum.” The idea that he was breaking a law, Nappen concludes, “never crossed Van Gilder’s mind. It’s an antique. He had no intention of shooting it. It wasn’t loaded. There was no flint, no powder, and no ball.”



…In this latest case, it seems clear that there was no need to arrest Van Gilder in the first instance, and neither was there any obvious justification for charging him. Indeed, in a reasonable state, the existence of judgment-limiting mandatory minimums would make prosecutors more likely, not less, to drop the fringe cases at the outset. But New Jersey is not a reasonable state, and its authorities are neither kind nor judicious. Rather, they are stubborn and they are zealous. There is something unutterably rotten about the Garden State these days. Gordon Van Gilder is merely the latest victim.

Naturally, Van Gilder is correct when he notes that he did, indeed, “break the law.” But, as he told the National Rifle Association last week, he is also correct when he posits that the “law is an ass” and that it needs to be changed. Earlier this week, the lawyers’ group blog Popehat noted caustically that “none of the New Jersey founders who ratified the Constitution when this pistol was crafted would have questioned the man’s right to keep it.” This is indisputably true. Indeed, the news that an arthritic septuagenarian retiree had been tied to a bench for a non-violent crime would presumably have shocked them to the core. But, for all that their words live on, those leaders are dead, and we must look now to the ones that we have today. Where the hell are they? Where are the voices crying out for a change in the rules, and for a restoration of basic American liberties? …



EDITOR’S NOTE: You can donate to Gordon Van Gilder’s legal defense fund here.
[/I]


Full story here:
[url]http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398862/new-jersey-man-faces-jail-time-transporting-antique-pistol-charles-c-w-cooke[/url]



Swampy’s Note: I haven’t seen a picture of the pistol in question, but the assertion that it has no hammer made me curious. I’ve never seen a box lock that had no hammer. If anyone has a picture of this particular pistol or one like it, I’d be interested to see it.

Box Lock Pistols:

[url]http://www.peashooter85.com/post/37681647121/what-is-a-boxlock-pistol-boxlock-pistols-were[/url]
2.) Deerminator - 02/18/2015
:groan:
3.) Swamp Fox - 02/18/2015
Fun Fact:


The phrase "the law is an ass" was popularized by Charles Dickens' [I]Oliver Twist[/I], when the character Mr. Bumble is informed that "the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction". Mr. Bumble replies, "if the law supposes that ... the law is a [sic] ass—a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience."[39]

---Wikipedia
4.) bluecat - 02/18/2015
That is just sad. The ballistics test is pretty funny though. I would have loved to have heard the conversation by the people responsible for performing that one.
5.) Swamp Fox - 02/18/2015
Ordinarily, I try to refrain from lifting such a large percentage of somebody's work as an excerpt, but the above was just too good, and too important, I think. I don't know how many people really follow links and I feel something like this needs to be seen.

[I][B]Before long, Van Gilder had been charged and the gun had been taken away for “ballistics testing,” almost certainly never to be returned. (That the department believes that a ballistics test on a flintlock pistol can be useful should give you some indication of who we’re dealing with here.) [/B][/I]


This ^^^, in particular, was a highlight for me in an otherwise disturbing story. I suppose we must maintain our sense of humor particularly in the face of stupidity, even hostile authoritarianism.

I would like the name and picture of the prosecutor or law enforcement commander who thought it would be a good idea to go back to arrest this man with a show of force and restraints. I don't think we're going to get it from the NBC affiliates in New Jersey.

Some people need to be run out of town on a rail.
6.) Swamp Fox - 02/18/2015
[QUOTE=bluecat;29890]That is just sad. The ballistics test is pretty funny though. I would have loved to have heard the conversation by the people responsible for performing that one.[/QUOTE]


"Joe, I've never seen one of these things in 40 years working for state government, but I think I've finally figured out which end the bullet goes in. What kind of bullets does this thing shoot, anyway? Do we have any up at Central Control?"
7.) Swamp Fox - 02/18/2015
It's possible they think they need to find a clip for it, too. :wink
8.) bluecat - 02/18/2015
Good one.


"Joe I'm gonna need a ball thingy and maybe a piece of gravel to make this thing go."



And you know those things are pretty particular on the right amount of powder, etc. I wonder what the size of those flames would be as they blow themselves up.



Did the cops perform a parafin test on him to see if he'd fired the gun recently? :wink
9.) Swamp Fox - 02/18/2015
LOL...

"So what you're saying is I fill up the barrel with this powder and then cut up this pillowcase into little squares, and then I just jam this thing down in there?"
10.) bluecat - 02/19/2015
"Joe, I'm not seeing any grooves on this round ball I just fired into this tank of water!"
11.) Hunter - 02/19/2015
The law is not the only thing that is an "ass!"
12.) Swamp Fox - 02/19/2015
[QUOTE=bluecat;29902]"Joe, I'm not seeing any grooves on this round ball I just fired into this tank of water!"[/QUOTE]


"You mean I have to load it all over and try it AGAIN?"


:laugh:
13.) Swamp Fox - 02/19/2015
Let's assume just for this one post at least that the guys at the ballistics lab know an antique pistol from a pancake social.

Then the fly-on-the-wall scene might play out like this:


Officer Obie from the county sheriff's office brings the box-lock pistol to the state crime lab in a plastic evidence pouch marked with circles and arrows and labeled "Implement of Destruction."

"Um, I need this gun tested and run for a match," he says.

The lab tech looks at the pistol and says, "You're kidding me, right?"

Officer Obie says no.

"Okay," says the lab tech, "And I'll personally enter the test results in the database. You should be able to look them up by the end of the day."

"Thanks," says Officer Obie.

The receptionist giggles.
14.) bluecat - 02/19/2015
You are probably right.













At least make the receptionist good looking.
15.) Swamp Fox - 02/19/2015
[QUOTE=bluecat;29911]

At least make the receptionist good looking.[/QUOTE]








[COLOR="#FF0000"]"What do you mean, 'Post the results on the Internet for you' "?
[/COLOR]
16.) bluecat - 02/19/2015
:-) :wink
17.) Swamp Fox - 02/19/2015
Here's a pic of the pistol.

If you look closely, you can see that it has '"The Scourge of Jersey" engraved on one side of the barrel, and "Give Me All Your Lupins" on the other.







Unless my eyes deceive me, that looks like it has a hammer and is a sidelock. So I don't know where the idea that it was a box-lock with no hammer came from.

This is gonna bother me all night.
18.) bluecat - 02/20/2015
"The flower Lupin?" :wink

19.) bluecat - 02/20/2015
Damn thing looks like a flute.
20.) Swamp Fox - 02/20/2015
LOL...

I posted an extended version of that Monty Python video which contains additional Dennis Moore episodes but I guess Alex had to get rid of it to un-freeze the thread.

In it, Dennis Moore swings on a rope into a room full of aristocrats and nobles and yells, "Stand and deliver!" and then "Your lupins or your life!"

I always remember the line "Give me all your lupins"---I recited the lupin sketches endlessly to the amazement of my friends when I was a kid :wink--- but I've not been able to find that on youtube. Perhaps I am just misremembering forty years ago. :bang:

So maybe we should take the old fire-breather down to the gun-maker's and have the engraving changed. :wink
21.) bluecat - 02/20/2015
There is a high school production of "Spamalot" here in our town. I'm heading there tonight. All of their humor still holds up and you can sure see its influence in many of today's comedy.

I used to be able to recite the whole 'architect sketch" back in the day. I would come home from school and put on the 3-sided album and get away from it all.
22.) Swamp Fox - 02/20/2015
LOL...

The George Carlin and--even more so--Cheech and Chong albums were other favorites. I could do Cheech and Chong sketches all day, LOL.
23.) Swamp Fox - 02/20/2015
I would go see Spamalot if I had the opportunity (and a date with the right sense of humor :wink).

I think it came through here at one of the local professional theater companies--probably Raleigh, maybe Durham---but I missed it.

I would have loved to have seen it on Broadway with the original cast, even though the last time I went to see a Broadway show on The Great White Way, it was on "the blind date from hell," and I'd have to think really, really hard what the show was. :bang:
24.) bluecat - 03/20/2015
Looks like somebody came to their senses.

Prosecutor drops felony gun charge over retired schoolteacher's antique flintlock pistol


[url]http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/prosecutor_drops_felony_gun_charge_over_retired_schoolteachers_antique_flin[/url]
25.) bluecat - 03/20/2015
Now on to "pointy" sticks.
26.) Swamp Fox - 03/20/2015
When vegetables are hard to get, only the hard-to-get will have vegetables. Or something like that...


“As long as you can go in some neighborhoods and it is easier for you to buy a firearm than it is for you to buy a book, there are neighborhoods where it is easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable, as long as that’s the case, we’re going to continue to see unnecessary violence” Obama said at the town hall meeting Friday afternoon.

“In some places it goes the opposite direction,” Obama also said. “People say we should have firearms in kindergarten and have machine guns in bars. You think I’m exaggerating...”


[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/12/obamas-odd-series-of-exaggerated-gun-claims/[/url]



I look forward to Obama's executive order disarming the police and SWAT teams.
27.) bluecat - 03/20/2015
What are you gonna do when someone comes at you with a banana?
28.) bluecat - 03/20/2015
[QUOTE=Swamp Fox;30671]When vegetables are hard to get, only the hard-to-get will have vegetables. Or something like that...


“As long as you can go in some neighborhoods and it is easier for you to buy a firearm than it is for you to buy a book, there are neighborhoods where it is easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable, as long as that’s the case, we’re going to continue to see unnecessary violence” Obama said at the town hall meeting Friday afternoon.

“In some places it goes the opposite direction,” Obama also said. “People say we should have firearms in kindergarten and have machine guns in bars. You think I’m exaggerating...”


[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/12/obamas-odd-series-of-exaggerated-gun-claims/[/url]



I look forward to Obama's executive order disarming the police and SWAT teams.[/QUOTE]

Did O mention that in those neighborhoods where it is easier to get a guns and "clips" than vegetables are the neighborhoods in Chicago where guns are banned?
29.) Swamp Fox - 03/20/2015
[QUOTE=bluecat;30674]What are you gonna do when someone comes at you with a banana?[/QUOTE]



We live in sad days when you can't call a fruit a fruit...

:wink
30.) Swamp Fox - 03/20/2015
[QUOTE=bluecat;30675]Did O mention that in those neighborhoods where it is easier to get a guns and "clips" than vegetables are the neighborhoods in Chicago where guns are banned?[/QUOTE]


The obvious solution is Obamacare for your pantry. Mandatory purchase of vegetables for your own good.
31.) bluecat - 03/20/2015
You try that with a pineapple down your windpipe.
32.) Swamp Fox - 03/20/2015
"You have to boil the collards before you can find out how bad they smell..."



[url]http://jimsulliv3.blogspot.com/2012/04/theres-nothing-worse-than-smell.html[/url]
33.) Wild Bob - 03/20/2015
So here's another interesting 'Law' for you guys to kick around. [url]https://www.ice.gov/cpi/faq[/url]

I am so very certain that these requirements will thwart the efforts of people traveling in and out of the US with less than good intentions...:re:
(I'm being sarcastic with that comment...just another great law that makes it harder for the well intentioned hunter going abroad.)

:re: would have been more appropriate to just call a spade a spade - I should have said 'dumb' instead of 'interesting'...
34.) Swamp Fox - 03/20/2015
No problems....

"Are you traveling outside of the United States with a non-automatic firearm or ammunition?"


I almost always leave my automatic weapons within the U.S., although it appears I don't need to.

:wink



Take the quiz:


[url]https://www.ice.gov/exec/ice-gov/cpiquiz.htm[/url]