A Michigan man whose 2-year-old daughter shot herself in the head with his revolver last week pleaded not guilty after becoming the first person charged under the state’s new law requiring safe storage of guns.
Michael Tolbert, 44, of Flint, was arraigned Monday on nine felony charges including single counts of first-degree child abuse and violation of Michigan’s gun storage law, said John Potbury, Genesee County’s deputy chief assistant prosecuting attorney.
Tolbert’s daughter remained hospitalized Wednesday in critical condition from the Feb. 14 shooting, Potbury said. The youngster shot herself the day after Michigan’s new safe storage gun law took effect.
It will get challeged to the Supreme Court and struck down.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/
“In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.”
They did leave some wiggle room which has allowed the law here in Washington to stick around. Basically if there is a reasonable possibility that a person who is not allowed to handle firearms would have access to them, you can apply restrictions. Guns here have to either be on your person or locked if there is a possibility that your kids could access them.
That"s the primary thing that’s going to send this guy away… felon in possession.
Where does the 2A say anything about “immediate self-defense”? Oh that’s right, no where. Fuck SCOTUS
In the context of the second amendment what do you think the word bear means? I’m not convinced that this law would violate what I think bear means. If it’s not on or near your person, I don’t mind it needing to be locked.
The word “bear” means whatever SCOTUS says it means. Much like “arms.” And “right.” And “infringed.” And “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”
And fuck whoever decided these posts fall under the definition of “speech” too, right? Right?
‘scuse me? you just drop in from a different conversation?
My god this is a shitty take.
Except these posts don’t fall under free speech
Sure they do. I can make whatever criticisms of the government that I want and they can’t prosecute me for it. Look how Russia and China handle online criticism.
Doubt SCOTUS ever touches this.
The language matters A LOT: Michigan’s mirrors California’s, which would absolutely hold up to any constitutional challenge because it’s based on negligence with an adverse outcome. Michigan’s and California’s basically say you’re a criminal if two things are met: you had any plausible expectation of a child being around, AND something bad actually happens.
Every states are a little different, and at the other end of the intelligence spectrum are New Jerseys and New Yorks, and nobody even cared to challenge those yet. New Jerseys statute says you’re a criminal, regardless of circumstances, if the guns are not locked up per some collection of criteria at all times when you’re not actively accessing them. I do know that most of New Jerseys rare prosecutions are actual bullshit, for example a cop going door to door to gun owners because of some local crime, asking to see someone’s gun to check it and not liking that the safe in the room he was in when they showed up was not completely locked (never mind he lives alone). Expect any challenge to arise there.
If SCOTUS does throw out all storage laws, it’ll be because of politicians who care more about their resume than about writing really good laws.
IIRC there’s already a storage law being challenged, I can’t remember if it’s California or somebody else. CA also has the magazine size ban.
I’m sure there’s every kind of law being challenged, anyone with a conviction can challenge a law and any idiot city council can pass garbage statute. Don’t let political rhetoric cloud judgement (can’t say “common sense” because common sense actually ignores deep analysis). Magazine size ban is wildly different from California’s implementation of a safe storage law. Magazine bans are as constitutional as would be a law limiting the number of words you may post online in one go.
The “common sense gun law” thing was just stupid. Remember when they were arguing to block people on the no-fly list from buying guns?
Despite the fact that there’s no due process for the no fly list and none of the shooters were actually on the no fly list…
“It’s common sense!” 🤔
This isn’t preventing him from getting a firearm this is charging somebody with improper storage of a firearm. Not sure how likely it is the supreme Court will rule against it but it’s different than the laws challenged so far
As a felon, legally, they couldn’t get the gun in the first place but that’s not going to stop a lot of felons.
It’s also not going to stop the Supreme Court from striking that down, too.
The money and power behind the GOP want us out here killing each other.
That’s actually one of the angles on the Hunter Biden firearms case… it will be interesting to see how far they’re willing to go.
They’d never grant hunter biden cert. They’ll wait for someone else to raise the point.
Doesn’t seem much different than a parent getting charged when their kids find their stash of drugs and consume them or take them to school.
It isn’t. But the freedom to own guns without any sort of restriction is much more loudly, enthusiastically, and financially supported than the freedom to consume drugs in your own home.
And thus it won’t matter that the key thing is being irresponsible. Being irresponsible with guns and drugs in the home are completely different things in the Modern Republican mind.
Not to mention both major parties are anti-drug, no matter that conservative originalism would have long ago recognized that the founding fathers were all stoners, but both parties packed the court with their own flavors of authoritarians.
Theses fucks are going to suggest that any mandate on how a person keeps their gun (as in in a box, in a safe, etc) is a restriction on their rights.
They already have, see the Heller decision cited above.
We need an Al Gore like figure who can charismatically drone on about needing a “Locked Box”.
Well, that depends on what you mean. If you mean “it would still be possible for him to illegally acquire or make a firearm,” yes. In fact it looks like he was already a felon in possession (or prohibited possessor) before this incident, clearly this specific guy can get guns regardless of the law.
But if you mean “this does nothing in a legal sense to bar him from arms possession,” actually being indicted on a felony count will pop up on NICs if it has been entered properly, and if it isn’t input properly and he does a 4473, he now has another felony count for lying on the form. Once this conviction hits, it’ll be added to the list, so his prior felony convictions for drugs/firearms related stuff and his felony conviction for safe storage will flag in NICs, this guy will never legally be able to buy a gun again.
Like I said though, “legal” and “possible” are two very different things, just depends on what we mean.
The point I was addressing is that the supreme Court shouldn’t strike this law down as it doesn’t affect ownership of guns. If the guy’s a felon he probably should not have had a firearm but I can understand why he would want one.
I just don’t understand the US and the 2nd. You’re not allowed to have a lot of various weapons and it just states that people can be “armed”, which could mean a lot of things. And even then, having a gun stored away safely is absolutely not infringing on that right either, as long as you have access to it. This is just obsessive gun fetishism and it constantly gets people killed, including little kids.
Just look at it through the lens of “would this increase or decrease the profits of the gun lobby?” and everything falls into place.
Eh, if my in-laws hadn’t bought me a gun safe before my daughter was born, I probably would have given up my guns, because I wouldn’t want to spend the money on a safe, but I also wouldn’t want unsecured guns in the house… But I’m probably not the typical gun owner so what do I know.
Safe storage? Tbh probably increase, who do you think sells gun safes? They’re in the “gunniverse” too it isn’t just Colt.
The Supreme Court has ruled that you’re allowed “bearable arms”, so essentially anything that can be carried, for self defense. And that requiring a weapon be kept locked up defeats the purpose of self defense.
Oregon has a law that requires guns be locked up, but dodges the self defense aspect by allowing an exception for guns under the direct control of the owner.
So if I’m home and in direct control of my guns, they don’t have to be secured. If I leave home or am not otherwise present, they do.
Can a 2 year old wrestle it away from you?
I dunno… have you seen some two year olds? ;)
“Why can’t I carry my nuclear warhead loaded rocket launcher to Wall Mart?!”
Not “bearable”.
See: JAIME CAETANO v. MASSACHUSETTS 2016
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/577/411/
“the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)
Could’ve at least quoted Heller’s common use if you wanted to make a point (even though I’d still disagree heavily), because “bearable arms” is a completely ambiguous term without a clear definition that is simply applied willy nilly to justify their gun fetishism.
Caetano supercedes Heller.
First, it is supersedes. Secondly, I don’t see how Caetano is really replacing that ruling when it still uses the “bearable arms” mantra without being able to specify what “bearable arms” exactly are. Heller was at least able to say “all commonly used weapons today are bearable arms”. It’s still ridiculously stupid but at least it’s some form of definition. So if Caetano goes over Heller, then the US went basically backwards and has no clear definition of what “bearable arms” fall under the 2nd. Make it make sense?
It would first have to pass the “dangerous and unusual weapons” test before even getting to the bearable test… At least according to ScaliaLaw.
It’s literally gun fetishism. Full stop.
The people who will angrily defend 2a are perfectly happy watching children die if it means they get to keep their guns. They’ll give you all kinds of excuses, they’ll come up with all manner of justifications, but the truth is, they just like feeling powerful and are willing to sacrifice innocent lives for it.
Don’t forget the racism. The NRA’s perfectly fine with throwing away gun rights if it means making sure only white people are armed. For example, even as Harlon Carter was ramping up his crusade to turn the NRA from a sportsman’s organization into the gun lobby, the NRA still supported the Mulford Act, because at least that was taking guns away from those damn ni- I mean, “violent extremists”. They were dead silent when a legal, responsible gun owner like Philando Castile was killed. They never said anything when the textbook definition of a “good guy with a gun”, Emantic Bradford, was killed. And we all know damn well why.
The Harlon Carter school of gun rights comes with a major caveat present in many strains of conservatism: no restrictions as long as you’re part of the right group.
I will say this though, the issue is still pretty complicated, because basically both sides have some history of racism (gun control first started as ways to assuage fears of black uprisings, plus the aforementioned Mulford Act), but then, what part of American society isn’t in some way permeated by our racist history?
It is complicated and a lot of people are ignorant.
It’s been made complicated by bad faith actors and years of propaganda. Fascinating really.
I dunno, it sounds like you understand it perfectly. A large contingent of the U.S. has decided guns are more important than children’s lives, and that’s why they have more rights.
They would say, well I have access to buying a Ferrari but I don’t have the right to one.