15 September 2014

Reprint: Firearms and Ignorance in Smalltown, USA

This is a true story; I know some of the people involved. Names have been changed for obvious reasons.

In Smalltown, Missouri, there is a city employee - let's call him Joe. Joe is a legal gun owner, and occasionally transports his gun inside his vehicle. When he's on duty, he leaves his pistol locked up in his personal vehicle, in a city-owned parking lot.

Smalltown has a mayor who fancies himself to be A Big Deal. Joe and Mayor Bigdeal occasionally have a difference of opinion. While it's not advisable to advertise that difference of opinion with the official who is your boss, it does happen.

Most recently, said difference of opinion resulted in a phone call to the police, and Joe being arrested for concealing a weapon on city property.

Joe spent a night in jail, and faced criminal charges involving a weapon. If convicted, Joe would also face the loss of:
  1. his job,
  2. his weapon, and
  3. his hunting privileges.
He would thereafter have a weapons charge on his record, meaning he could never again get a permit to own or carry a weapon.

The city attorney was cooperating in this process, up to this point. Then something happened. Somebody talked. People asked questions.

The Board of Aldermen got involved. THEY asked questions.

They called upon the city attorney. And - gasp - FACTS began to be revealed.

Those facts, in short, were these:
  1. The city has no ordinance against weapons in personal vehicles, on - or off - city property.
  2. Approximately 75% of city employees carry concealed weapons.
  3. Most of those weapons are actually brought into the city's property (a building, in this case), where those employees show their weapons off to other employees.
  4. These weapons have occasionally been left in the break room.
  5. It has even occurred that the supervisor had, in his possession and inside city-owned vehicles, a personally-owned weapon.
  6. The mayor reasonably should have known this.
  7. The police reasonably should have known this.
  8. The city attorney certainly should have known this.
  9. The mayor is a jackass, and NONE OF THIS SHOULD EVER HAVE HAPPENED.
The city attorney has contacted Joe, saying words to the effect of "We'll forget about this, if you will."

Joe is now considering his options. Forgetting about it isn't one of them.

9 comments:

Old NFO said...

Good for him! That was a step WAY too far... IMHO...

Rev. Paul said...

I concur, NFO. Typical small-town bullying.

JMD said...

Whoa, that is seriously messed up. My husband says he would tell him that he would forget about it for 10yrs of his wages, plus his social security paid and his health benefits paid. LOL, then he would forget about it.

Rev. Paul said...

JMD - that sounds about right, to me. :)

ProudHillbilly said...

I might forget years after I filed the lawsuit.

threecollie said...

Mr. mayor messed with the wrong guy I guess

Rev. Paul said...

PH, I hear that. :)

threecollie, I think you're right.

Anonymous said...

GUM'MINT (noun) - Here to help since...well NEVER here to help, just to continue gaining wealth and power.

We do have courts - he should sue the crap out of them!

gfa

Rev. Paul said...

gfa, I suspect he settled, but got a right good deal out of it.