Police face legal, administrative hurdles to tracking guns

[SecularMotion]

Officers were investigating a possible break-in on Franklin Road last weekend when the resident came to the door holding a loaded 9 mm handgun. Officers immediately ordered him to put the gun on the ground.

The man put the gun down when asked, and admitted his license had expired some time ago. When police found out the gun was unlicensed, they confiscated it for safekeeping. The man can get the gun back if he renews his license.

It turned out the robber was wayward raccoon.

In this case everything worked out O.K., nobody was injured, and the gun is safely in police custody. But the incident, along with another weapons case from June, illustrates major challenges for police departments across the commonwealth: so-called legacy weapons and the difficulty of confiscating guns from expired license holders.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/news/x1405836545/Police-face-legal-administrative-hurdles-to-tracking-guns#ixzz253HPhIoY

[ileus]

1. Glad I live in Virginia.

[petronius]

9. Reading that story, I think even us Californians can gloat a little...

[Hangingon]

2. So happy I live in Texas!

[glacierbay]

3. I was trying to figure out why he needed a license to own a gun

and then I saw it was MA.. That's all I needed to know.
Glad I live in a state where we don't have to register or have a license to own a firearm.

[rl6214]

4. So glad you posted this story that was really a non-issue

because no laws were broken.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

10. yup.

[Jenoch]

5. What I find interesting about this story

is that it reminds me of several instances in Minnesota where a county sheriff or city police chief is quoted in a news story and refers to an 'unregistered' gun. I remember calling the sheriff's office and asking how to register a gun. Of course the person answering the telephone did not see or understand my point so I let it go. In Minnesota, there is no such thing as gun registration or a license to own a gun.

[PavePusher]

6. May I see your voting licence, please? n/t

[PavePusher]

7. Perhaps Massashitschits should unfuck their firearms laws...

and stop creating criminals out of the exercise of a Constitutional Right.

[rDigital]

8. +1000

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

11. + 100 n/t