I don't follow the sports news, not even a little; the headline caught my eye nevertheless, something about an AK-47 and a baseball player....
It seems Evan Longoria and a couple of teammates rented a house together. While they were out doing whatever it is baseball players do at Spring Training, young go-getters were getting into the house and got away a TV set, a laptop, Xboxes, iPads, fancy watches...and Longoria's rifle.
The latter item, sportswriter Dan Brown treats as if the ownership of is evidence of awfulness and as for not having stored the gun as though it was a radioactive escaped child-strangler, why, Mr. Brown is simply horrified it was there at all, lecturing readers that, "Longoria wouldn't want word to get out that he was careless and irresponsible enough to store an unsecured deadly weapon in a rented home that had little or no apparent security system and would frequently be unoccupied." I guess because we should all just assume our houses will be burgled?
The fun comes in the comments, about 19 in 20 criticizing the sports writer for his anti-gun attitude.
Yes, we'd all like to see guns stored safely when they're not being carried* -- but just as it is his choice to leave a costly watch on his nightstand instead of locked in a box in a drawer with his socks, it is the owner's choice how to store firearms. An overwhelming majority of random Internet commenters grasp this obvious truth; sportswriters, not so much. (Meanwhile, the player's local paper manages to cover the issue without frothing at the mouth).
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* My reason for going to greater lengths to lock them up than, say, rare telegraph keys or the big-screen TV is because I don't want to walk in on some yahoo who will proceed to shoot me (or more likely, club me) with my own gun, not because they're so especially special-bad.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
4 comments:
Am I a bad person that my loaded gun (8+1) is not locked, but reachable (hidden) from beside my bed when not on my hip?
Any other condition leaves me a corpse, IMHO.
I am a little torn on this. Is the player a citizen of the State that he has rented the house from? Many states do not allow non-residents to have guns unless they are CCW and/or heading to the Hunting Fields and have out-of-state tags. Does the Landlord have a No-Gun Policy in his lease? And is this a case of Sports People who think they can violate the Law and get away with it because they're "Special"? Finally, isn't the Glock the Pro Sportspersons weapon of choice? I know there has been many Sporty types caught with them under the seat when they go 120 mph down the Highway in their Beemers up in our neck of the woods, so why an AK-47? Bitch to get through TSA.
Don't get me wrong, I just think that if there was some local ordinance or State Law that he broke, he should have checked with his lawyer to see what's Legal and Not Legal when he's traveling away from his Home State. Which is why I try to avoid Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Washington D.C., Kalifornia,.....
Bubblehead,
It's only in Occupied America that the locals even care who owns an AK type sporting rifle. States where even long guns have to be registered or which have their own "Scary Looking Gun Ban".
Florida? Yawn.
Les, really? Even more reason not to visit IL (etc). Most decent states do not begrudge the honest citizen's longarm, even including many of the ones that don't recognize my LTCH.
This incident was a Florida-team player in Florida, so it is as legal as church on Sunday, just one Amendment down the list.
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