“Taiwan’s military is considering increasing the frequency of rifle shooting practice for high-school students as part of a push to implement its all-out national defense policy,” chinapost.com.tw reports. “We are hoping that the Ministry of Education (MOE) can increase the frequency of rifle shooting practice from once in three years to once every year,” General Chen Hsiao-ming of the Ministry of National Defense told a legislative session.” Meanwhile, fayobserver.com reveals a different scene in Sampson County, North Carolina . . .
School personnel were checking student vehicles about 1:50 p.m. when the Remington 7400 rifle was seen in [17-year-old Jason Derrick] Jackson’s unlocked vehicle, said Lt. M.D. Smith, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman.
Deputies searched the vehicle and found a Stoeger P-350 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, a Charles Daly 12-gauge shotgun and rounds of ammunition, an incident report said.
It’s believed the weapons were used for hunting and Jackson forgot to take them out of the vehicle, Smith said. There was no indication of criminal intent, he said.
Bail for Jackson, who was arrested about 3:45 p.m., was set at $5,000.
By law, any student bringing a firearm onto school property must be suspended for 365 days, according to the Sampson County Board of Education’s policy manual.
I imagine the Taiwanese authorities would impose an equally severe penalty on any student who possessed a firearm without official permission.
Even so, the Sampson BOE’s zero-tolerance approach to Mr. Jackson’s firearms forgetfulness is a long way from North Carolina gun culture 1.0. A change that’s sure to leave Mr. Jackson with a permanent blot on his record and no small amount of personal trauma. And our armed forces with one less potential rifleman.
I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, it is totally ridiculous and basically a mandatory minimum sentence. 5k in bail is absurd especially since there was no criminal intent. Cases where the ‘situation’ is not considered do not end up punishing or not punishing people appropriately.
On the other hand, I work at a place where no firearms are allowed on site and it is super easy to take them out and avoid bringing them to work accidentally. If the person doesn’t get punished in *some* way, it will probably happen ever more often.
I guess it is really the incredibly harsh punishment I have issue with (aside from the general no guns allowed attitude).
What is absurd is the sheriff’s office searching vehicles without a warrant? In a court of law this would be thrown out and not be allowed into evidence. With a school, guilty until proven innocent. The sheriff’s deputies should be disciplined, as should the school super, principal, other individuals involved.
Warrant? It’s a felony for a student to have a Rem 7400 in the school parking lot. Deputies claim a 7400 was in plain sight, giving them ample probable cause.
If you’ve got a legitimate beef here, it’s with the legislators who made it a felony to have an unloaded rifle in a car when it’s parked at a school, and with the kid who’s too f&$^ing stupid to lock his guns in the trunk or at least throw a blanket over them.
Not here in the good ol’ Commonwealth of Kentucky. We have a law specifically preventing this kind of horse caca. In KY, it is illegal for ANY place, public or private, to prohibit a citizen from keeping a firearm in his or her vehicle as long as he/she does not remove it from the vehicle. Litmus test was at University of Kentucky (yes, I know they’re treated differently than Primary/Secondary education facilities) where a medical resident student was discovered to have a loaded handgun in his car. He was fired and filed lawsuit. He won over a million in damages.
Actually, this young man violated two Felonies:
1. Bringing to school
2. Having a long gun while he is 18 years of age since he is only 17.
Unfortunately, he will never be allowed to touch a weapon again unless maybe the
military accepts him.
What his parents should do is immediately get him into a Home School Program so he can
graduate at the same time as kids he grew up with.
I was wondering if I was the only one that noticed that little tidbit….Hopefully the folk of that township will rise up, and straighten out the Political problems with their school system, and police department…
glenux, I think you’re mistaken. My son shoots competitively on the Alamance Co. (NC) high school shooting team and they have just last year, extended it to the middle schools.
“There is no minimum age to possess rifles and shotguns in North Carolina.
It is a misdemeanor in North Carolina for any person to knowingly permit a child under age 12 to have access to, or possession, custody, or use in any manner of any firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, unless the person has the permission of the child’s parent or guardian, and the child is under the supervision of an adult.2
Additionally, North Carolina prohibits any person from causing, encouraging, or aiding a minor who is less than age 18 to possess or carry, whether openly or concealed, any firearm on educational property.3 Moreover, subject to very limited exceptions, North Carolina imposes a felony on any person who sells, offers for sale, gives or transfers a handgun to a person under the age of 18.4
Federal age restrictions impose stricter limits.”
http://smartgunlaws.org/minimum-age-to-purchase-possess-in-north-carolina/
“School personnel were checking student vehicles . . . when the Remington 7400 rifle was seen in . . . Jackson’s unlocked vehicle”
Why the passive case? Who saw the gun and how?
Student vehicles were being checked by school personnel . . . when the Remington 7400 rifle was seen in . . . Jackson’s unlocked vehicle
Completely pacified now.
Hopefully, the prosecutor will use his discretion and refuse to prosecute the boy. As for the school officials, why didn’t they lock the guns in the trunk and ask the kid to take them home instead of making a federal case out of this? And as for Taiwan, it’s clear they understand how nations secure their continued survival…a lesson we are quickly forgetting in AINO (America in Name Only).
Because gov’t school admin = 0 brains and 0 balls
4th Amendment civil rights violation lawsuit in 3..2..1.
4th amendment, 1789-1970 RIP, courtesy of the war on drugs.
Yes, the so called war on drugs dealt a mortal blow to the 4th Amendment. And our ‘war on terrorism’ is erasing any notion of privacy rights. In this case, however, there was no unlawful search of the boy’s vehicle. The officer had a legal right to walk around and look in the windows of the boy’s vehicle. That’s not considered a search. He observed the rifle which was in plain view and that point had a legal right to seize it .
Oh BS. Some busybody 3rd Asst Vice Principle with too much time on his hands was prowling the student parking lot snooping in cars. Sees a rifle, wets self, then calls the popo to resolve/escalate the situation. Odds 100% are they knew exactly which kid they were chosing to crucify before the even looked owner info up.
The fourth amendment protects against “unreasonable” searches and seizures.
The plain view doctrine is a reasonable justification for a search. The cops were looking through windows, in a place they had a right to be, and saw an illegal situation in plain view.
What’s unreasonable is suspending a kid for a year and arresting him on what’s probably a felony charge for being forgetful and irresponsible. What’s even more unreasonable is making it illegal to own, possess, or use (in a way that doesn’t harm others) property.
Government has no reason, only force. Asking them to judge what is reasonable is folly.
It is folly to trust the government to decide what the government doing is reasonable or unreasonable.
I don’t know that I think it’s reasonable to walk around looking in all the vehicles parked onsite, though…
I sincerely hope that’s not what they were doing.
Homeschool folks. And Taiwan can have all the rifles in the world and still get completely overwhelmed by China. Waiting for an even weaker president?
Well yeah, because it’s an island. What they really need to practice on are fighter jets and navy cruisers.
Probably eventually, but it wouldn’t be as quick and easy as you think. A few dozen Polish Jews made life miserable for around 11k German soldiers in Warsaw with nothing but a few bolt action rifles, revolvers, and SMG’s they picked up. Taiwan is very congested in the cities and mountainous in the country. It would be a nightmare scenario for the PLA forces.
It’s illegal because the school policy manual says it is?
Let’s check that out…
…ouch. Class I felony to have an unloaded gun on school grounds, and none of the common exemptions apply if you’re a student attending that school.
OTOH, the claim was that the LAW requires suspending the student for one year. While that might be in the General Statutes somewhere, I haven’t found it yet. Maybe freshly convicted felons get automatically kicked out of school?
Or maybe it’s school policy, but no law requires it as claimed?
http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/statutes/statutelookup.pl?statute=14-269.2
You can’t be forgetful with firearms – he learned a tough lesson at a young age that will make him a much more responsible gun owner in the future.
Well, if FedUp is correct in above post, he might be a felon and never a gun owner again ….
Hopefully he’s offered a reasonable, non-felon deal from the prosecutors.
If I were they, I’d offer to dismiss criminal charges without prejudice, if he pays some court costs, and with the agreement that the charges will be reinstated in full if he commits any crime in the next 1-3 years. That seems reasonable for ‘no harm done, no criminal intent, but an arrest has already been made’.
“The British government was not, in a purely formal sense, attempting to abolish the Americans’ common law right of self-defense. Yet in practice, that was precisely what the British were attempting. First, by disarming the Americans, the British were attempting to make the practical exercise of the right of personal self-defense much more difficult. Second, and more fundamentally, the Americans made no distinction between self-defense against a lone criminal or against a criminal government. To the Americans, and to their British Whig ancestors, the right of self-defense necessarily implied the right of armed self-defense against tyranny.”
Does this sound familiar?
+1000
First off, I think we should have more rifle practice in high schools. My high school ROTC had a rifle range on campus… Awesome go Texas! F the Chinese.
Shotguns, in an unlocked vehicle, in plane sight, at a school… fail, fail, fail.
That being said, I work at a location that does not allow firearms and as a daily carrier I have, on occasion, ‘accidently’ forgotten to disarm myself. Oops
Definitely a major F-up on the part of the young man, leaving a firearm in plain view in an unlocked vehicle. Essentially he got in trouble for being stupid. If I had a kid, I’d kill him for leaving the car unlocked when guns that I paid for are left inside.
In Sampson Co. NC there ain’t a whole hell of a lot more to do than hunt, which I’m sure the administration knows. Maybe something can be worked out.
“By law, any student bringing a firearm onto school property must be suspended for 365 days, according to the Sampson County Board of Education’s policy manual.”
Hells-bells, the kid just got a year’s vacation before graduating high-school. He’ll kick back, probably get a job for a year, make some money and hang out with his friends on the weekends.
If they wanted to *really* hurt him, they could have made him do an in-school detention for a full year…
What a joke in school detention was. It was about the only time I did my homework and I still had time to play poker with my buddies while running down the clock.
This is what you get when you have enforcers instead of peacekeepers. To an enforcer, a violation of the law is the trigger for finding the law breaker and arresting him regardless if anybody was hurt or had rights violated or even if there was no criminal intent whatsoever. To a peacekeeper, this violation of the law when there is clearly no criminal intent means finding the culprit and impressing on him the need to take those weapons home right-by-God-NOW and then get back to class.
I’ll take peacekeepers, thank you very much.
You’re exactly right. The mindset has shifted to something morally wrong, and I’m not sure what can be done to fix it short of going into LE myself and trying to make a bit of difference.
I never forget that I am carrying. However, I sometimes have forgotten that some gentle people find it to be a problem. There is a difference.
India has one of the most extremely hoplophobic systems on earth, but high schoolers and university students can join the National Cadet Corps and learn to shoot all small arms that are issued to the military and police forces. The state provides the range time and guns and ammunition. In the past, anyone who received a certificate from the NCC could join the armed forces as a Jr Warrant Officer ass well. I am not sure if this is any longer the case.
All of this has zero bearing upon gun ownership freedoms in that country. In fact, there has been nothing but a decline in the gun freedoms accorded to law abiding Indians since the first bans came under the socialist Indira Gandhi regime in 1984. My guess is that too much shouldn’t be read into the Taiwanese training. That country has laws that are only slightly less hoplophobic than India’s.
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