GA: Dekalb CO Commissioner - Walker pays fine for having gun at airport

[WAGCEVP]

Walker pays fine for having gun at airport

By HENRY FARBER
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

http://tinyurl.com/qxkh


DeKalb County Commissioner Lou Walker paid a $300 fine and began 12 months on probation Tuesday after admitting he carried a handgun into Hartsfield International Airport.

An X-ray machine detected an unlicensed Davis .380-caliber automatic in Walker's carry-on bag Aug. 8. He told police he had forgotten the gun was there.

Walker, a former Chicago police vice detective, said a few days later that newspapers and TV stations had sensationalized the case .

However, his attorney, Chuck Driebe, said Tuesday that publicizing the story was appropriate as a deterrent "so people won't act dumb in the future."

Asked for his own comment on the case, Walker said: "God is blessing me. I'm in good shape."

Walker, 65, pleaded guilty to carrying a deadly weapon in a public place, a misdemeanor that could have gotten him one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Clayton Solicitor Keith Martin said Walker had never been arrested on a felony charge.

Walker represents District 7, which covers the eastern half of DeKalb County, including Doraville, Lithonia, Pine Lake and Stone Mountain.

He easily won re-election last November to a four-year term on the seven-member board.

Walker has appeared as an actor in the television series "In the Heat of the Night" and the movies "Mississippi Burning," "The Firm" and "Remember The Titans."

 

[P95Carry]

A costly lapse on his part for sure ......... and i guess the fact that he ''got done'' at least shows that those in office won't necessarily get away with it..... any more than Joe Sixpack ... tho he only got probabtion, so maybe he gained some leniency after all.

 

[El Tejon]

I feel sooo much safer.

Silly blissninnies. Airport security is the reason for 9/11.

 

[treeprof]

Sentence isn't too out of line w/what regular Joes are gettin, based on news reports, tho there have been some exceptions.

 

[Orthonym]

UNLICENSED? Aaarghh!

There's no such thing as an unlicensed (or licensed) gun in Georgia! Besides which, if the man had taken the trouble to look at the Ga. statutes he would have found that they provide an affirmative defense for someone who accidentally carries into a restricted area and admits to it. Of course he would have had to actually know where his gun was, and realize he had it with him!



Edit: Inserted "accidentally" between "who" and "carries".

 

[RangerHAAF]

Lou Walker's a good ole' boy. He doesn't go out of his way to antagonize gun owners and his offense was just a dumb mistake. Nothing more than any of us could have accidentally done under the same circumstances. I do business with the same people in Underground Atlanta that Lou does and they don't have a bad thing to say about him. Just a tough and embarrassing lesson he learned.

 

[AZRickD]

Here is the e-mail I sent to the author ... [email protected]

There is no such thing as an "unlicensed" gun in Georgia

Why is it you journalists keep making this mistake? It's almost as if you want people to think that gun registration is normal, when in actuality it
is very rare.

Rick D
Phx, AZ

His response:

First of all, thank you for flattering me by calling me a journalist.
More important: a sincere thank-you for correcting me. Thanks to you and a
couple of other observant online readers, I corrected the article and
removed the erroneous reference to "license" in our print editions. The
error should have been corrected in the online version; I cannot explain
the apparent oversight.

Ironically, my faulty information came from a prosecutor who has a
reputation for conservative politics. I try to keep my political views out of the paper, as do almost all my colleagues who are news reporters.