300 Year Old Flintlock Pistol = Felony & 10 Years In Prison In NJ

[Mr VJP]

Hard to believe any prosecutor would ever do this to an upstanding citizen, right?

 

http://downtrend.com/robertgehl/72-year-old-retired-schoolteacher-faces-ten-years-in-prison-for-possession-of-300-year-old-flintlock?utm_source=fnot1&utm_medium=facebook

[wildcat junkie]

I sold a Rugar "Old Army" percussion revolver on Gunbroker a few years ago. Even though it is of modern manufacture & to some extent, design, the fact that it was percussion ignition made it legal as an antique firearm under federal & most state laws. (even NY) It was also legal to ship via USPS as an antique.

 

I did my homework before hand & found that a few states required it to be shipped to an FFL, NJ being one of them. Don't you know, the winning bidder of the 1st auction lived in NJ. I contacted him & for some reason he had a problem W/taking possession through an FFL so I canceled/relisted the auction. I ended up selling it to somebody in another state.

 

While I think the NJ laws are ludacrous in respect to this type of firearm, I can only wonder what the guy was up to. Why couldn't he take shipment through an FFL? I have sold a lot of breech loading guns on GB & shipped them to FFLs.

 

A Rugar "Old Army" is only capable of 6 shots, but when it is loaded to full power, it has the ballistic capbilities of a 45 CP, 800+ fps Mv W/a 243gr conical bullet. It is also very accurate..

[ants]

 I don't care what the laws are in New Jersey . That is one lame ass charge. I would be too embarrassed to even try to charge someone with  weapons possession for having a 300 year old  unloaded flintlock. Something ain't right.

 

[wheelieman]

Just another example of the big brother is going to slowly remove firearms from out country, 1 at a time and making examples of people in the process.

[BizCT]

Why was it in his glove compartment? Was he on his way to/from the shooting range ? When I travel with my pistol, I put it in a plastic carrying case in the trunk.

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Edited February 18, 2015 by Biz-R-OWorld

[wheelieman]

Does it matter why it was in the glove box,?

[BizCT]

Does it matter why it was in the glove box,?

Depending on the laws in NJ, yes. I'm not aware of what their laws are but that may have been the issue

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Edited February 18, 2015 by Biz-R-OWorld

[growalot]

I want to know why he was dumb enough to say sure...routine traffic stop and you want me to consent to a vehical search...go right ahead.....

it would have been no I don't think so.... whats the cause and this is being recorded to another persons machine on my cell...or 911...

 

PS...I lov reading all the comments after these things...most informative...

Edited February 18, 2015 by growalot

[growalot]

Ya know...I'm going to save my little Gander points up and get a Gopro cam and keep it in my car...I have finally realized that in this country we now need to be able to video tape where ever we are for our own protection against...Well everything ....

[ants]

My guess it that he consented to at the search because he thought having an unloaded 18th century flintlock pistol (which in NY isn't even a firearm) was no big deal. But yeah the answer should have been no.

[jjb4900]

had he recorded the whole thing, who would it have helped? certainly not him......"yes sir, you have my permission to search my vehicle....oh, and by the way, I have a pistol in the glove compartment you may want to take a look at."

[growalot]

Speaking of trolling...that is all those cops are doing/trained to do...they know that they can't search unless they are given permission ...the guy obviously was in the "system" as a gun license holder and they knew that before approaching the car...but without some outward cause they had no right to go looking..When you truely believe you have nothing to hide...make them work for what ever BS they want to come up with or step off!....

[Culvercreek hunt club]

My guess it that he consented to at the search because he thought having an unloaded 18th century flintlock pistol (which in NY isn't even a firearm) was no big deal. But yeah the answer should have been no.

For the record. In NY it isn't viewed as a pistol requiring a permit (Don't know about the People Republic of NYC) unless you are in possession of the components to make it go bang.

[ants]

At the end of the day the guy told the police that he had the flintlock and he gave them permission to search his car. According to the little information in the article, the police did nothing wrong. Although I think they could have used a little discretion, given the type of pistol it was, and the age of the guy. 

[growalot]

I do not believe anyone said the police did anything wrong...it was said the guy did by saying yes to the search....

[Mr VJP]

It's also interesting he was not arrested when he was stopped.  They let him go.  Apparently the Sheriff was asked about it and decided he needed to be charged, so he sent his men back to the man's home the next day to arrest him.

 

The law in NJ is designed to make felons out of any gun owners it can, so they can convict you and take away all of your 2nd Amendment rights.  They won't put him in jail, but they will fine him, make him a felon, remove his guns and his rights, and put him on probation.

 

IMHO, that is also exactly what the NY SAFE Act was written to do.

 

[wildcat junkie]

For the record. In NY it isn't viewed as a pistol requiring a permit (Don't know about the People Republic of NYC) unless you are in possession of the components to make it go bang.

I was going to posr that. That's one of the reasons I sold my Old Army revolver.

[ants]

Ya know...I'm going to save my little Gander points up and get a Gopro cam and keep it in my car...I have finally realized that in this country we now need to be able to video tape where ever we are for our own protection against...Well everything ....

 

Speaking of trolling...that is all those cops are doing/trained to do...they know that they can't search unless they are given permission ...the guy obviously was in the "system" as a gun license holder and they knew that before approaching the car...but without some outward cause they had no right to go looking..When you truely believe you have nothing to hide...make them work for what ever BS they want to come up with or step off!....

 

I do not believe anyone said the police did anything wrong...it was said the guy did by saying yes to the search....

Sorry I misunderstood. But the top two posts sound to me like you  were a little pissy with the cops, who did nothing wrong and like it or not were given permission by the driver to search the car. They still should of cut him a break IMHO.

[growalot]

Do you know that not only court and possible jail time but..He is a retired school teacher and now they are trying to take his pension away from him...Someone want to tell me WTH his pension has to do with anything?!!! he's retired for crying out loud!!

[growalot]

Actually ants I was ....but shouldn't be..they are trained to play on the publics cluelessness. To exploit their willingness to be submissive to about any authority...the problem is, that not only draws in the idiots doing wrong but the innocents that are unaware of any wrong doing... We have really left little room for right and wrong in what we call our JUSTICE SYSTEM....

[Two Track]

So, you can't have a firearm in your car when traveling through Jersey to hunt or go shooting outside of New Jersey, or transport an unloaded antique firearm, but you could ship it UPS through Jersey.

 

Very sensible law.

 

A baseball bat or an 1780's era bayonet is more dangerous than an unloaded antique flint-lock pistol.

 

His pension is his money, you pay into your pension.  Now if he stole funds from the school system, I could see denying him his pension from the school, but that is not the case.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Two Track

[Sogaard]

http://www.nj.com/cumberland/index.ssf/2015/02/suspicious_activity_in_drug_area_led_to_antique_gu.html

 

Some interesting additional information on this topic.  Honestly, my favorite part is the last two paragraphs where it seems there is bipartisan support for changing this stupid law in NJ.

[Doc]

I don't think that any of us are aware of how at-risk we all are for this kind of crap. Everyday we go out into the world totally unaware of all the volumes of laws that are hidden in the pages of our criminal justice system.

 

We have people who spend years learning this system that we laymen are expected to conduct our lives under. Every year, lawmakers pride themselves about the volumes of new laws they cram into the already unreadable amounts of laws that exist to the point where they have created a system that makes criminals of us all, just waiting for the appropriate law enforcement agency to discover inadvertent offenses. It's just not right that a guy can start his day thinking he is a law abiding citizen, and end that day facing a felony that could yield him 10 years of prison.

[Mr VJP]

Doc, that is exactly what these gun laws were intended to do in the first place.  

 

I sincerely believe politicians that support ANY gun laws that only affect the law abiding, do so because they want us all disarmed.  But that pesky 2nd Amendment makes that hard for them to do, unless we commit a felony.  So, they pass laws that make you a felon for doing something like what this poor old man did.

 

It is all by design as far as I'm concerned.  No gun owner should ever vote for anyone that is OK with stupid gun laws.  I find it easier to simply never vote for any Democrats, since they are the party of stupid gun laws, unless the particular Dem politician I'm voting for is a proven supporter of the 2nd Amendment.  The rest of them, whatever party they belong to, are usually more honest about their gun law opinions.

[Doc]

Unfortunately, gun laws are but one small part of the even larger problem of excessive laws. Every facet of our lives are controlled by laws piled on top of laws, piled on top of laws to the point where you are almost guaranteed to be breaking some law somewhere at sometime even though you have no intention or awareness that you are doing so. It happened to be one of the many gun laws that this guy had no idea he was breaking, but there are so many other potential traps laid in the legal system in every aspect of our existence.

 

Frankly, I would be much more impressed with a candidate that made it his life's work to get rid of laws instead of proposing new ones. I actually feel less safe with the multi-layers of laws that legislators keep adding to, than anything that may be lacking in our legal system. That point seems to be lost on a lot of people until they become involved in a serious problem like this old gent.