I remember panicking when I arrived in Sydney International Airport and seeing a handgun for the first time. The Police Officers there were all armed and it was so unnerving, I'd never seen a gun like that in real life. I bet I'd shit myself if I came to the States.
Lol. A friend of mine who is a teacher got in a fight with her principle because the principle wouldn't (couldn't, according to him) stop a parent from open carrying when he came to pick his kid up. They write all these rules about where you can(not) caring concealed weapons, but then don't say anything about open carry. Not sure if it's national or local, but the open carry folks have been very vocal in Michigan in recent years.
That's an LA Airport cop. Parked in front of a chicken place down the street. Having lunch. They've been armed like that since the North Hollywood Shootout.
Fuck me, that's intense and I hadn't even gotten to the video. What gun is that? It looks like what I'd use in a Call of Duty game, a SCAR or something like that. We had some reform in NZ after the Aramoana Shooting (14 dead, our country's worst I believe?) - some firearms were reclassified to minimize the chance of them being used in that manner. A surprisingly good movie came from it too. I guess I just don't grasp the culture around firearms that appears to be in the States. I know people who own firearms for hunting and pest control, but never for personal defence - they're always locked up and dismantled to some degree until they need to be used. Is it where people are thinking "Well someone could use their weapon against me, so I should be armed to negate that if possible"? It both fascinates and terrifies me.
That would be a Smith & Wesson M&P 15. It is very much like what you'd use in Call of Duty, where you'd probably be using an M4 Carbine, which is basically the evolution of the M16, which is the select-fire version of the semi-automatic version of the AR-15, of which the M&P 15 is Smith & Wesson's version (for "military & police"). US gun culture is insane. Going over previous discussions on Hubski, it's a killing field of user-inactivated's and shouting matches. Much like the United States.
Damn. One more case with so many "easy" answers that turn out to be hard. Sentencing is particularly lenient in this case, I think. Shouldn't the dude that sold the gun get more than a year? Would other sellers be so cavalier about not following procedure, if this guy went away for 10 years, minimum? And transferring it illegally to another person gets you a year in jail? Is that all? Why not accessory to murder? (Yeah... I know why... because you can only prosecute cases you can WIN, and Accessory is hard to win.) The blunt instrument of the law is inefficient and weak against this type of activity. It'd be nice to see prosecutors given some greater leeway, and sentences be MUCH heavier. Sure. Sentencing won't stop those who are gonna do it anyway. But at least we can pull them off the street and out of public for a decade or more. That's gotta count for something...