OT: What would you do?

Ah, the joys of gun control!

Pfaugh! That's why we threw the king and princes out of the country in

1776 or so.

Thanks, Rich

Yeah, in the US. But we have a Constitution instead of a king. (Or that's the way it's _supposed_ to be.)

Thanks, Rich

[snip]

Well, its in the UK. So everyone supposing about how courts and juries work based on US law (or more likely watching Law and Order) is pretty useless.

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Paul Hovnanian  paul@hovnanian.com
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Have gnu, will travel.

Makes you wonder whatever happened to common sense! Wait I know lawyers and politicians happened.

I worked in retail well in school and the police won't come or won't be in any hurry for what they consider a trivial offence "shoplifting".

I use to see people who would just walk in a grab things in plane sight and leave knowing full well there's nothing you can do.

So you're not left with many options if you want to make a living in retail. You have to use force to protect your lively hood or go bankrupt.

Well, another person in the thread with a brain. With firearms, you learn the laws and deal with it. Case in point is the definition of a loaded gun.

Do these morons drive a car and not know the laws of the road? Again, personal responsibility is the key.

Which culminated in George W. Bush for 8 years...

We here in Oz tried to top your glory of GWB by having Little Jonny for almost 12 years, but he's not in the same league of stupidness. You win :->

But I like the fact our head of state can just go missing and we don't give a toss, that can be useful :-D

Dave.

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Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
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Recently replaced by Barack Hussein Obama, who is not only embracing the worst of Bush but TRIPLING the problem, while he bows to princes and dictators.

Thanks, Rich

From what I can gather, he was legally elected by popular vote (no protests and egg throwing this time!), hadn't started any uncessary wars, is actually smart, doesn't have any direct family connections with your sworn enemy, and at least looks like he's the one calling the shots without the puppet strings. A definite step up the evolutionary chain, a hearty congratulations. Your next step up is to elect an atheist.

He was left holding a really big smelly bag, he has my commiserations.

Dave.

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Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
http://www.eevblog.com

I like that. Whatever happens to you in life is your own fault, so don't try to shift the blame. Be awake to your responsibilities at all times :-)...

Regards,

Chris

He would probably have been OK if he had warned the police that he was bringing them a weapon he had found in his garden thrown over the fence. Although they would have told him not to touch it, leave it exactly where it was and come round within the hour to collect it for forensics.

His mistake was to turn up at a police station and produce the weapon unexpectedly. I suspect a US police desk officer would also take a dim view of a member of the public wandering in and pulling out a gun.

Why assume that? It seems from other reports that it is more complex.

They have no choice once it was recorded. That is the very essence of zero tolerance policing - there is *no* common sense at all. The sawn off shotgun is the violent criminals weapon of choice. As such possession or handling one in the UK is a strict liability offence.

It is a zero tolerance rule brought in by the US Rambo style policing. Zero tolerance gives no leeway for motive and they are often very badly drafted knee-jerk pieces of legislation. Dangerous dogs act is another.

Reading other reports it seems that the guy gave the police officers quite a shock. I wonder exactly how a US police station desk officer would react if someone walked in from the street and pulled a sawn off shotgun and ammo out of a bin bag at the front desk ?

A slightly more informed version of events is online at :

There seems to be more to it than has been reported in the biassed account that started this thread. If the story was exactly as reported in the local rag then I doubt if the CPS would have prosecuted.

Regards, Martin Brown

That seems to be the opinion of anyone who has read the story and isn't predisposed to believe it on the sole basis of it confirming their prejudices.

The main issue which comes up is why no other media outlet seems to be reporting this. Apparently it got half a column-inch in The Sun, which would normally have a story like this on the front page for days if it had legs.

The fact that it took the jury 20 minutes to convict suggests that this was a unanimous verdict, and a fairly easy one for the jurors. In awkward cases, juries will occasionally return "not guilty" verdicts in spite of clear evidence that the accused is guilty as charged, or at least request repeated clarifications from the judge to make it clear that they aren't particularly eager to convict.

Based on the very limited information provided in the sole primary source, my guess is that the jury simply didn't buy his "I found it" defence.

Don't they have bullet-proof glass windows and intercoms inside UK police stations?

;-)

** And you think I have done that ??

Jury nullification is allowed in all "common law" countries - the US, UK and Australia are all examples.

Jury decisions may also fly in the face of the weight of evidence, not because the jurors believed the law to be wrong, but because they simply did not trust the evidence given by police and police witnesses.

Many examples of a " hung jury " arise when one or two of the jury know just how likely it is for police to produce perjuring witnesses and falsify evidence themselves in order to get a conviction.

.... Phil

** And if it had a court reporter at the trail - which it obviously did not.

The man has not been sentenced yet, so wait for it.

** Well, the jury were told this was a case where the accused had no possible defence and the witnesses were all local police officers. Like most juries, they simply did what the judge told them to and believed they should do - instead of "rocking the boat". ** No evidence was produced to falsify the accused's claim of finding the gun in his yard - so it would be a monstrous miscarriage of justice for a jury to simply invent such evidence.

Where evidence from an accused is uncontradicted, it must not be assumed to be a lie by the jury - cos that flies right in the face of the " presumption of innocence " that is at the heart of all criminal cases in the civilized world.

..... Phil

Nonsense. You threw out the British tax collectors. All the pretentious talk about liberty was just an after the fact justification for a straightforward piece of tax evasion.

When you started taxing yourselves you immediately had another - less susccessful - revolt, the Whiskey Rebellion

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

snipped-for-privacy@example.net...

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alk

ard

All true, but we had a great 220-year run, didn't we? And we've got fewer cameras than the UK, so far.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Not everything that happens to you is your own fault. But this situation certainly wasn't rocket science. It's like those nuts that try to sneak weapons past the TSA just to prove the TSA can't do the job, and then bitch when they get arrested.

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lly,

t

Judges and prosecutors HATE Jury Nullification or Fully Informed Jury Association!

At Voi Dir they screen out anybody who has ever known of a corrupt cop, court or government. Anybody who was ever charged with anything, whether found guilty or innocent, is excused. Anybody who ever HEARD of FIJA is screened out. FIJA was handing out pamphlets outside of court house. Anybody who got one to read while waiting, screened out.

Juries are given a thick stack of Jury Instructions. In a case with mandates like the Brit one above, they would be instructed NOT to consider intent.

Judges at all levels tend to be attorneys and are well aware of confirmation bias and "risky shift".

Juries have to waste so much time waiting that they are angry and basically just want to convict the accused bastard and go eat lunch.

Prosecutors then brag about their ""success"" rate.

If even one FIJA person got into a jury then instead of the automatic guilty to go to lunch, more juries would be not guilty go to lunch.

If you're on trial for something your fate rests with 12 people who were not smart enough to get out of jury duty and who just want to go to lunch.

If you've got a "public pretender" you are screwed.

Been there, done that.

I served 6 months in Jail for something I did NOT do.

The chance of anybody on the jury objecting to the jury instructions that are like horse blinders or cattle stanchions or giving a rats ass? They just want lunch.

How would you explain him turning it in to Police?