A Father's Good Deed Earns Him Bruises, Apology (Part 1)

[gunsmith]

I hope dad learned his lesson well!

But he knew the right thing to do was to take it to the police department, so he did.

twenty years ago a friend from Texas visited me in NYC,he had a sawed off double barrel in the cab of his pick up truck.

I did the right thing,I told him not to show it to anyone else!


What was dad trying to do? get his son a felony record before his life even gets started?

With a dirtbagdad like that no wonder he needs a sawed off!

 

[Highland Ranger]

Typical liberal feel-gooder idiot.

Can't raise his kids right and instead of just taking the weapon, disassebling it and tossing it in the dump, he has to go show what he found to Mommy and get credit for it.

Didn't work out the way he expected did it?

But certainly no surprise . . .

 

[feedthehogs]

Bad parenting.
This should have been taken care of in-family.
60 year old father, 16 year old kid. Nothing in common.
Rats his kid to the coppers instead of finding out whats going on with his kid.
Police action was also totaly wrong, but he got what he deserved.
First for trusting the coppers, second for being bad parent.

There are no bad kids, just bad parents.

 

[Selfdfenz]

I find it strange that:

1. the Dad's worst error "may have been" using bad judgement but even that is debatable. Why he is being burned at the stake here on THR. BTW in many places truning in a firearm-without-portfolio is considered acceptable behavior.

2. If the facts presented are correct, the LE officers in all likelihood at least broke with police policy and probably broke the law!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please move your wood piles under the appropriate set of players guys.



S-

 

[XLMiguel]

Coulda/woulda/shoulda . . .

Granted, the guy shoud have followed his instincts and tosssed it into the river and had a serious talk with sonny-boy. But maybe he was worried about the thing falling into the wrong hands and wanted to be sure it was destroyed (in which case he should have busted the thing up himself, or better yet, make the kid do it, and have a serious talk with sonny-boy), so he decided to turn it in to the 'authorities'.

But apparently he's about a bright as a low wattage bulb and gulible enough to fall for the 'be a good citizen and get gunz off the street' hooey, and then he ran into a couple of inept cops in the process and was treated poorly for his efforts. He may have not made the best choices, butthe guy didn't do anything wrong!

As far as being a 'ratb@st@rd', I didn't see any mention of the kid being pursued or charged It's clearly a broken home situation, does that automatically make him a bad parent? What about mommy (afterall, the kid lives with her)? How many of you have your kids under control? Yeah, he coulda done better, but from my POV, the cops were the bigger problem, and there's alot missing from this story.

 

[Moparmike]

You know the ugliest part of this story?

None of you are surprised by it.

Stop and think about that for a moment.

7.62 asked most of my questions for me.

I too was surprised to find out there was no mention of the son being confronted about it. Even if it wasnt sawed off, I can think of a lot worse things to be in a 16 yr. old's closet than a double-barrel shotgun. However, if I found such a thing in my son's closet (when I have children) without my permission, "words" will be had. He wants a Playboy, fine. He can be all secretive about it. Guns are a different story when they are there without a parents permission.

 

[TechBrute]

Makes me want to think twice about involving cops in anything.

 

[Diggler]

The problem is that the kid obviously didn't have the proper respect/fear of parental authority. Man, when I was 16 I'd have NEVER done anything like that. Of course, then you could get a good butt-whoopin' when you deserved it. The discipline you get when you're 3 - 13 stays with you when you're old enough to actually take on your old man... but you don't.

If the guy properly parented his kid when he was younger he wouldn't have to be scared and run to the police to do it for him when the kid is in a young man's body.

 

[TechBrute]

The problem is that the kid obviously didn't have the proper respect/fear of parental authority. Man, when I was 16 I'd have NEVER done anything like that. Of course, then you could get a good butt-whoopin' when you deserved it. The discipline you get when you're 3 - 13 stays with you when you're old enough to actually take on your old man... but you don't.

If the guy properly parented his kid when he was younger he wouldn't have to be scared and run to the police to do it for him when the kid is in a young man's body.

So your opinion is that it's the kid's fault that the police violated the guy's rights, embarrassed him, abused him, and otherwise acted inappropriately? Huh?

 

[Diggler]

Nope. The cops shouldn't have handled it that way, and they were wrong. It never should have been taken to the cops. It's the father's fault that he's such a wussy that he didn't have the capacity to properly discipline his child without involving the authorities. If he would have dumped the gun in the river then took the kid out behind the woodshed, society would be much better off.

 

[TechBrute]

Ok, now THAT I can agree with!

 

[flatrock]

The cops definately handled this wrong.

The father was trying to properly dispose of the firearm. He probably didn't know how to disassemble it, and wanted to make sue it didn't end up in someone else's hands.

That's the kind of situation the police weapons turnin programs are supposed to deal with.

I think that usually those programs state that you won't be charged for illegally possessing the firearm if you turn it in.

The article doesn't give enough info for us to judge the father's parrenting efforts. All we know is that it's a broken family, the kid lives with his mother, and she found the gun in the kid's room. Even relatively good kids sometimes do really stupid things.

 

[Matthew Courtney]

The problem is that the kid obviously didn't have the proper respect/fear of parental authority. Man, when I was 16 I'd have NEVER done anything like that. Of course, then you could get a good butt-whoopin' when you deserved it. The discipline you get when you're 3 - 13 stays with you when you're old enough to actually take on your old man... but you don't.

My understanding from reading the articles is that the boy's parents were divorced and that the mother had custody of the boy. If that was the case, the father lacks any legal authority to discipline the boy witthout the mother's consent. It does appear that the mother consulted the Dad in this instance, but it is normally failure to address day-to-day disciplinary issues that brings this sort of circumstance about in the first place.

I find it hard to fault a man when his wife takes his kids and then fails to disscipline them. In cases such as these, I fault the system that allows women to take children from their fathers.

 

[USAFNoDAk]

This brings up an interesting question. Can you possess a shotgun barrel that is less than 18" in length if it is not attached to a shotgun? Just curious.

I wondered also about the kid. If this was an "illegal" shotgun was there a charge filed against the kid?

If I was this father, I would have kept the shotgun, ordered a new barrel for it, and tossed the old barrel in a trash dumpster somewhere. Then I would have sold the shotgun for whatever I could have gotten for it, unless it was something nice that I didn't already own.

Another question, can you ask the cops to run a serial number on a firearm for you to see if it has been declared stolen? Seems to me there is a way to do this somehow, but I can't remember the procedure.

 

[Daniel T]

Can you possess a shotgun barrel that is less than 18" in length if it is not attached to a shotgun? Just curious.

Knowing the ATF, if you had both parts at the same time, then I'm sure they'd try to prosecute.

I would have removed the barrel and disposed of it as well. the father probably wasn't gun-savy at all.

 

[Calenth]

I don't blame the father for falling for the "be a good citizen and turn in firearms" drivel. Most people aren't clued in, they have lives and jobs etc., and you can't blame them that much for falling for gov't propaganda, especially when it's of the "be a good citizen and obey the law" variety. He still was pretty dick to his kid, but he probably didn't realize that, didn't realize he was setting his kid up for a felony conviction, etc.

That said, I'm amazed that any officer responded to "you can't come in here without a warrant" with "ok, you're under arrest." I mean geeeesh. You'd think they'd at least have the constitution waved across their faces at some point during training.

 

[TimRB]

Lotta people jumping to a lotta conclusions based on a newspaper article. Fact is, there's not enough info to go on. For instance, many seem to be presuming that this kid is more-or-less just like they were when they were 16. How do we know that this kid wasn't a gang-banger who's already been arrested for assault? Presumably his father and mother know him better than anyone here; maybe they knew damn well he was planning to kill someone.

The article doesn't tell you anything, and, like all newspaper stories, is written to evoke a specific reaction from the readers.

Tim

 

[Molon Labe]

The two officers who arrested Minter were obviously thugs. Nothing new here. I was actually more disturbed by the police chief's statement when he said,

We want the public to know in no uncertain terms that anytime they want to turn weapons or contraband over to us, they will be welcomed and appreciated.

In other words, the police chief is rolling out a red carpet for anyone desiring to "turn in their weapons." Something just doesn't sound right there...

Can't you just hear the police chief berating the two cops in a closed room? I bet it would go something like this:

"What the hell were you two thinking? If someone wants to give us their guns (any gun), we need to welcome them with open arms."

 

[7.62FullMetalJacket]

We want the public to know in no uncertain terms that anytime they want to turn weapons or contraband over to us, they will be welcomed and appreciated.

Remind me not to go to any of HIS parties. That kind of welcome and appreciation can leave a mark.

 

[Molon Labe]

7.62FullMetalJacket said:

Remind me not to go to any of HIS parties. That kind of welcome and appreciation can leave a mark.

Agree.

Now I could be wrong here, but it would appear the police chief’s real concern is not Minter’s well-being. I think his primary concern is the message it sends to all the subjects in his jurisdiction who (by his account) should be turning over their guns to him (even the legal ones). He desperately wants those guns, and he wants everyone to know that he’ll roll out a red velvet carpet for anyone who “does the right thing†by Turning Them In™.

 

[TimRB]

"He desperately wants those guns, and he wants everyone to know that he’ll roll out a red velvet carpet for anyone who “does the right thing†by Turning Them In™. "

Honestly, what would you expect him to say? I personally would rather throw a gun in the river than give it to the police, but what about the non-shooter who somehow finds himself with a gun he doesn't want? He can't just put it in the trash.

Tim

 

[Diggler]

He could find it a good home.

There are plenty of people who are willing to open up their homes and take in an unwanted, neglected firearms.

I propose we start up a 'no-kill' shelter for all these poor firearms. Especially knowing how they reproduce while left alone in a gun safe!

 

[ceetee]

I'm getting into this one a little late, but I think a lot of us are forgetting something when we call this guy a rat, or whatever. He's 60, and most likely he's a product of a time when you could go to your local law enforcement and say, "Listen, I just found this illegal item, and I realize that my possession of it is illegal, so I'm here to turn it in so nobody will get arrested over it..."

He prolly thought he was doing the right thing, no harm, no foul. The cops were way, way, way out of line.

And the kid needs a good beatin'.