NBC is dealing with an unexpected legal problem after a segment by David Gregory, who displayed what he said was a high-capacity ammunition clip on “Meet the Press.” D.C. law prohibits the possession of high-capacity ammunition clips. This may have been a case where a picture — or consultation with counsel — might have been in order. There is no exception for the media in such possession cases.
On the show with the National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre, Gregory showed him the clip and said “Here’s a magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets. Now, isn’t it possible that if we got rid of these . . . if we replaced them and said, ‘Well, you can only have a magazine that carries five bullets, or 10 bullets,’ isn’t it just possible that we could reduce the carnage in a situation like Newtown?”
The predictable response from LaPierre was “I don’t believe that’s going to make one difference.” The less predictable response came from gun owners and gun control advocates who noted that the possession of such a clip is a crime. The D.C. law states “No person in the District shall possess, sell, or transfer any large capacity ammunition feeding device.” This does not require that the clip be attached to a weapon and does not appear to require that it have rounds in the clip.
The reported investigation could also ensnare those NBC employees who obtained and transported the clip.
I honestly believe that Gregory is not blameful and that the law should have some flexibility for news or artistic speech when the clip is empty of rounds. What do you think?
Source: Washington Post
Mespo,
I was always fond of Semper ubi sububi(sp?) I think it was a poor man’s version of always wear underwear! 🙂
Malisha,
I worked and lived with Holocaust survivors and their children growing up in Skokie. The children were impacted mightily by what their parents and grandparents witnessed and endured during the Holocaust. it should never be made light of.
Fabian,
Me thinks you protest too much.
lol@mespo
John? I don’t believe that David Gregory should be prosecuted under this law. I will leave a link to the DC law for you:
http://weblinks.westlaw.com/result/default.aspx?cite=UUID%28N7496AEB040-7F11DEBED1F-A98FBEFE5AD%29&db=1000869&findtype=VQ&fn=_top&pbc=DA010192&rlt=CLID_FQRLT17200535232612&rp=%2FSearch%2Fdefault.wl&rs=WEBL12.10&service=Find&spa=DCC-1000&sr=TC&vr=2.0
I don’t see how Gregory gets 1 to 10 years in prison simply by using this as a demonstration on a talk show. It is like saying a Defense lawyer or a Prosecutor may not hold the same clip before a jury and be subjected to prosecution simply because they used it as Demonstrable Evidence.
Bron:
“how do you say “ruh roh” in Latin?”
**************************
Sterca sancta!
What’s it called when a society it makes war in several countries and leaves manned [sic] bases behind when it [doesn’t really] leaves; has warrantless surveillance on all communications; cameras everywhere and more to be deployed in form of drones, big and tiny ones; military munitions in the hands of the police; indefinite detention without charges or hearings; “kill” lists; legal sexual assault for travelers; searches without warrants, etc. And what happens to that society when the only ones who have weapons are the police, the military, and the security forces for those who can afford their own private police, the corporations and the extremely wealthy? And when SYG laws protect them from killing. I think it’s a damn scary place to be.
KKK light?????!!! That is right out of the book (Rules for Radicals) isolate your opponent. Call them names so no one will dare associate with them. I am a pround member of the NRA and I could not care less what color anyone is. We are all children of God and only one race… HUMAN!!
Germany, 1928 law required all firearms to be registered and firearms dealers to be licenced. Mandatory prison time for all professionally transferred firearms without proper clearance from government
1931 law enabled police to confiscate any weapon and ammunition and put it in police custody. Even stabbing weapons.
1933 Jews lost all civil rights and government jobs.
Nov. 11 1938 new law Barred Jews from owning firearms.
Soon after the murders began.
You say “they didn’t see their government as their enemy”. I think by 1933 they had clue.
The history of mankind is dungeons, killing fields, and slavery.
I’m not willing to ovelook that. Oh yes.. my mistake, that paraphrase was from Thomas Jefferson. I think he new something about the context of our second amendment rights.
P.S. My remark about you being a racist is because of your remark about (brown people doing yard work and poor inner city blacks or just white suburbanites being armed) You brought race into a discussion that has NOTHING to do with race. ALL people regardless of color have an absolute right to defend themselves and their families.
Fabian wrote: Germany, 1928 law required all firearms to be registered and firearms dealers to be licenced. Mandatory prison time for all professionally transferred firearms without proper clearance from government
1931 law enabled police to confiscate any weapon and ammunition and put it in police custody. Even stabbing weapons.
1933 Jews lost all civil rights and government jobs.
Nov. 11 1938 new law Barred Jews from owning firearms.
Soon after the murders began.
You say “they didn’t see their government as their enemy”. I think by 1933 they had clue.
At what point should they have gotten together and decided to shoot and at whom should they have decided to shoot? Armchair theorizing is all well and good but visualize yourself with your neighbors, some of whom will agree with you to become violent and assertive/maybe aggressive, some who will not, and a few of whom might be nazi sympathizers or informers.
Seeing the government as the enemy, when their neighbors were often also the enemy, makes it hard to figure out if and when you should pick up a weapon.
Rafflaw, I know and I do, and thank you.
Just one of those careless Holocaust quotes pushed one of my buttons this evening. I think it’s because I did a lot of research this last week (for a friend of mine who was writing an amicus brief) on the psychological lives of the children of Holocaust survivors. A man who was the first-born son of TWO (count’em, TWO) Holocaust survivors was being held in prison because he would not testify against another Jew, based on his understanding of the “Mesirah” law in the Torah. As a secular Jew, I interpreted the “Mesirah” differently from him, but who am I to tell him what to think about his own religion? Anyway, in doing the research I read way way WAY too much about the effects of the Shoah on the children of its survivors, and when I see a careless “TV-like” take on what the Jews should have done to prevent the Shoah, it really sends me into high gear.
The NRA are, in my opinion, “KKK Light.” Insanely powerful, of course, of course, and once more, it’s all about the money.
Seasoftreas, of course neither extreme is necessary and of course there’s no reason for anyone to either arm to the teeth or to disarm others who believe they need guns. What I was writing about was EXTREMES that have occurred and the take that two people, at least, on this thread, have on one of those extremes.
My own opinion about gun control? I don’t study it enough to be very much involved OR to speak authoritatively about it. I do believe that nobody who is not a licensed law enforcement or military person should have or need a magazine with 30 bullets in it. That’s not needed for self-defense or for hunting. My son owns guns and he hunts and he knows how to use guns and I believe he’s a little bit too overly defensive but after all, he lives in Virginia where there actually are lots of hostile folks in his vicinity. Fortunately he does not imagine that he needs a machine gun with 30 bullets in a clip. And I think that so long as he can prove he will use weapons responsibly it’s OK for him to have weapons. But of course, one little mistake and he should have to deal with the “little mistake” immediately and his gun operation and ownership should come under review. He agrees on that count. He used to ride a motorcycle, had one bad accident, and stopped riding. That’s reasonable and rational in my opinion.
But it’s offensive and foolish to misuse the Holocaust to buttress an argument that Americans need to be in possession of more and more lethal armaments and that this should be more unregulated than it presently is. That’s just ridiculous, besides. So I use extreme examples and knowingly so. The Israelis are a very defensive people. Do they need to be? Sure they do. Have they learned a form of maladjustment as a way of life because of a gross misfunction of the society their parents and grandparents lived in? Absolutely.
That’s what I mean. If I could have my way I would have the Israelis be a lot less defensive right now, but who am I, after all, to preach to them? I am not prepared to defend them, even though they are actually prepared to defend me.
Peace of the season upon you too.
Malisha,
Consider the source. The NRA is an out of touch corporate lobbyist organization that makes money when gun and ammo manufacturers make money. They do not care if people die because of their illogical and dangerous actions. The facts never get in their way.
Fabien P, you think I’m probably a racist and you get there by which progression of facts and logical conclusions? This one I really want to read.
About your idea that your belief that American need to be more armed than they are at present (which Americans, by the way?) being logically related to the fact that the civilian Jews of Europe were not armed when the Shoah began its inexorable progression, or that my pointing out the illogic of that idea being related to your assumption that I don’t understand that the American government could (could?) turn repressive and dangerous, I have no idea what you think you read.
I’ll go sentence by sentence.
The Jews of Germany had a right to arm themselves but they had no reason to suspect that their chosen way of life — as ordinary people and not as soldiers for the most part — was inadequate for the circumstances in which they lived. Once their way of life was changed (by political means, I remind you, not by armed invasion) they were in no position to suddenly go out and form themselves into a well-armed militia. Jews who lived in the surrounding countries that later fell to the Germans were soldiers in the various European armies and they were, as such, armed. Ordinary citizens, civilians, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were not generally armed because that was NOT their way of life and they had no intention to be soldiers since they were NOT soldiers.
It’s not possible to “march armed people into gas chambers” — this is a very common stupid fantasy. You think that people can transform their entire lives into entirely different lives like you pick up weapons in a video game? Where does this lunacy come from. How easy it is to say. Take your common example, take Anne Frank. She’s what, 14? Her father is what, a businessman? He has no guns. Does Anne have guns? She’s studying Latin and German and Dutch and mathematics and history; does she also study weaponry and tactical deployment? Why? Must we make our whole lives into a form of individual self-defense with the expectation that everyone everywhere is in a dangerous jungle and it’s every man for himself? It’s utter nonsense; a society cannot function this way. Some (few) people are soldiers and other (most) people are not.
“How dare you want to disarm people against even knife wielding thugs” — HUH? I want to disarm you against knife-welding thugs? No I don’t. I want to disarm you against waitresses who can kill you with a coffee pot, that’s whom I want to disarm you against. You don’t see how very different your and my imagination of your imminent demise can be?
“If you think our government can’t become tyrannical you are delusional.” Are you kidding? I think our government is already tyrannical and getting worse by the day. If I thought I could successfully take out enough tyrants to change that I might go buy an uzi on the street in DC for $1,200 — don’t think it’s not possible. But you are delusional if you think that is going to de-tyrannize our government. Our government puts people to death on a daily basis for no reason other than it increases the power of our government and increases the wealth of corporate interests. The time to change this was back in the 1700s some time if then, and the moment is lost even if I have a tank and a bomb, all delusional “freedom fighters” like Timothy McVeigh to the contrary notwithstanding.
You don’t have to prove to me that millions of people murder millions of other people and that the 20th Century has made that more extreme than it could have ever been before (even in Rome). Will you stop that please? And if you will promise to stop that, I’ll promise not to disarm you, OK?
But it is my suspicion that: (a) you have no evidence of my racism; and
(b) your plan to arm enough people to make all the killing stop is not going to work in the long-run or even in the short run, especially considering those “knife-wielding thugs.”
Malisha. I think you are probably a racist. I don’t care what color you are you have a right to defend yourself and your family
They murder their “own” people. Not the “wrong” people . Again voice texting errors. There are a few more errors in there. But I think you understand it
Malisha. Frankly I don’t give a damn if I p*** you off or not. If the Jews of Europe had a undeniable right to self defence right to be armed equal to all of theirs in Europe it could never happened in the way that it did. It it’s not possible to march armed people into gas chambers. You maybe able to defeat them on the battlefield but not slaughter them like cattle. That would have exacted a high price for the Nazis. As far as the Jews being wimps, far from it. Many fought gallantly in the ghettos with just handguns. the writer of the Constitution said ” the best reason for the people to own arms is in extreme cases to fight the wrong government if it were to become tyrannical” that’s a paraphrase not a quote look it up. How dare you want to disarm people against even knife wielding thugs. We have an absolutel right to self defense. We have a absolutel right to throw off the tyranny of government. If you think this government can’t become tyrannical you are delusional. All of Europe or just civilized d probably more so than we are today justice cultured probably more so than we are today. Yet they murdered the wrong people by the way that was over 3 million members of the NRA not 3 billionthat was voice activated texting screwing up then there is still the USSR China Romania Cambodia north Korea has murdered millions of its own people. The Armenian people we’re disarmed in the murdered by the Turks. That is the history of mankind in the 20th century
Malisha, why do u have to go to either extreme?? No middle ground?? You don’t have to be a over confident, trigger happy nut to arm yourself with the knowledge, state of mind, and equipment to defend yourself with..
Is that a clip, beyond a reasonable doubt?
Well we know the news network will sell a reporter out…… I’d rather not say…. Bushwhacked ……
LeeJ’s link indicates that NBC got an ok from ATF and a no from DC Metro. It’s a DC law so I guess the no should prevail. There is also some question as what he was actually displaying.
Darren Smith, Fabien Pruett, and anybody else who believes that the Holocaust was caused by the victims having failed to either arm themselves adequately or having failed to appropriately take up arms and defend themselves and their families valiantly enough, now hear this and think on it a minute before you come back on here telling me how much the victims were to blame.
THEY DID NOT PRESUME THAT THEIR GOVERNMENTS WERE THEIR ENEMIES.
Would you have had them presume their governments were their enemies? Are you endorsing that kind of a culture — if so, where, for whom? Just for Jews? Or maybe for Jews, gypsies and Russians? For Tutsis or Hutus? For Blacks in the US perhaps? For Skinheads, for libertarians, for Jews in Idaho, for Arabs in Michigan, for whom, for all of us all the time? Is that the way we are supposed to solve these problems? And how the hell do these problems arise?
Here’s what I know about the Jews of Europe: They did not arm before the Shoah started because they had no expectation that they were suddenly the enemies of all the peoples of Europe, see? They thought they WERE the peoples of Europe, see? And you do not go gung-ho-notso-getagunand-athousand-bullets unless you are either (a) an enemy of some armed enemy or (b) paranoid, hostile, or any weird and unnatural combination of them both.
Easy solution to what the Jews “should have done”? You SURE you would have done better than all those passive little whimpering victims over there, you Darren, YOU Fabien? How damn dare you!
Trayvon Martin shouldn’t have been such a little sniveling teen-aged wimp; he shoulda been carrying on 2/26/2012 in case some wannabe cop hopped up on Adderall and fake testosterone wanted to stalk and kill him, huh? Like Anne Frank’s father who should have armed himself and killed somebody as soon as he got wind that bad people were in control of his — HIS — government.
P1SSES ME OFF! People are living normally and they are not hurting anyone and they are not expecting that suddenly a situation that is ordinary and commonplace will turn into some kind of horror-movie-nightmare and you want to analyze it after the fact by saying they should have armed themselves?
So then you get two, three whole generations of Jews who start to think like that. They’re militarized from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads and everywhere Jewish in between and they MEAN it and they mean to NOT BE VICTIMIZED and they’ll damn well KILL YOU if you look at them sideways and they won’t stand for anybody — anybody — talking to THEM about how to be normal and … Oh, hey, stop criticizing them. That’s actually how you WANT them to be. Had their ancestors only figured that out a little sooner, Hitler wouldn’t have been forced to go ruin his reputation herding a bunch of unarmed wimps into the ovens so y’all could go “tsk tsk tsk, passive little dead Jews, what a damn shame.”
Which way you want me: dead passive or armed and dangerous and ready to tell the whole world, “I’ll run over anybody and put my foot on all your necks and you can’t say boo to me about it because I’ve got myself all armed up and respectable”? Just let me know. Not that I’ll comply, just curious.
And about Americans now, getting armed and dangerous: Who? Blacks living in a neighborhood you don’t want to go into? Hispanics working in rich men’s backyards and laundry rooms? Or just suburban whites who have what they think is the luxury to fantasize about defending their “freedom”? Just askin…
Peace of the season be with you.