So tell me, how does one get sentenced to two years for shooting oneself in the foot

[jasi2006]

in a night club, and legislation is being passed to allow folks to pack guns on Amtrak? Just asking.

[virgogal]

1. Clarify please!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

4. Plaxico Burress sentenced to two years in prison

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2009/09/plaxico-burress-sentenced-prison-giants-new-york.html

[aquart]

2. The nightclub is ruled by New York law. Amtrak isn't.

New York isn't the Wild West. The rest of the country...

[abelenkpe2]

3. Non white

c'mon, do you really need to ask that question?

[aquart]

6. Wow. That's both dumb and racist.

The idiot brought a gun into a crowded New York venue and it went off because, have I mentioned he's an idiot? It only shot him, thank you God. Could have shot the waiter, his companions, the people at the next table.

This IDIOT endangered everyone in that space. People who, thanks to New York's strict laws, feel rather safe going out in public in New York. We don't wear bulletproof vests with the spike heels.

[jobycom]

11. I think there was implied sarcasm in that post.

As in, his penalty was worse because people are more afraid of black men with guns than of white men with guns. Not completely sure that's completely wrong.

If the sarcasm wasn't meant, that is an irony all its own.

[abelenkpe2]

23. It's sad that that needs to be explained

but you did a good job nonetheless.

[jobycom]

29. Thanks. nt.

[Andy823]

20. I couldn't agree more.

No matter who it was, no matter what race they were, it's just plain "stupid" to what he did, and I agree he was an idiot for doing it!

[madeline_con]

14. Right, a white guy shooting inside a club would be acquitted.

:eyes:

[Ken Burch]

19. In L.A. old white guys can shoot women right outside busy restaurants.

[madeline_con]

38. Outside. n/t

[pipoman]

58. Without witnesses..n/t

[Liquorice]

51. I couldn't believe that guy was found not guilty. But OJ got away with murder in CA too. nt

[Aragorn]

31. probably would have been suspended

with 5-10 years probation, community service, etc - if he was white maybe. If he hadn't tried to cover it up - ??

Anyone in NYC area got any idea how this particular sentence stacks up?

[jobycom]

33. He would in Texas.

Look up Billy Joe Shaver. Shot a man in the face in a club after asking him "where do you want it?" It took a year to indict him, and after another year he still hasn't faced trial. Probably never will, and if he does he'll probably be acquitted. He had a license to carry, but he still was forbidden to carry in a club.

Just one. The government rushes to protect anyone with a concealed carry permit involved in a shooting. Can't have the law look like the bad idea it is.

[jeffrey_X]

34. chances are very good that the white guy would not be spending 2 years in jail

especially if he was a millionaire.

[anonymous171]

25. That's a joke right? nt

[YOY]

5. Nobody is packing heat on Amtrak save the APD and other police.

The new law just lets folks transport their firearms (safely packed) on our trains.

[bbinacan]

7. Amtrak

The guns must be in checked luggage. You know, like on airplanes. What did you think, that you could ride Amtrak with a six-shooter on your hip?

[stevedeshazer]

8. Sneaking a gun into a night club endangers innocent people.

Legally transporting a gun on a train is not a comparable analogy.

[madeline_con]

12. Actually, discharging it posed the danger.

:P

[JonQ]

16. I think being an irresponsible idiot

possibly intoxicated with a gun posed the danger.

[Missy Vixen]

44. My favorite part was that it was stuck in the waistband of his sweats

He should go to jail just for being teh stupid.

IMHO.

[appamado amata padam]

9. It's not that simple. eom

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

10. He was carrying a firearm illegally.

[JonQ]

13. Because he had a gun

in a place he was forbidden to have a gun, was not license to carry it concealed and discharged it recklessly in public.

And you do realize people won't be waving guns around on trains any time soon? They have to be locked up and unloaded and stored as luggage, the exact same as when taken on a plane (how many plane shootings have there been?).

[flvegan]

18. Didn't he also conspire to cover the facts of the matter up?

I thought I had heard he was fabricating stories with witnesses, etc.

[dhpgetsit]

15. There is a billionaire mayor that wants to make a name for himself.

[stevedeshazer]

22. That's definitely part of it, too.

[Statistical]

17. He recklessly fired a weapon (accidentally) into a crowd.

He is lucky he didn't hit anyone else and lucky he only got 2 years.

[asdjrocky]

21. When it happens in a crowded club

and some innocent bystander could have been killed. He should be doing a year of that as community service, but the gun laws in NY are there for a reason.

If he was at home, or in his car, or any where alone, he would have not been treated so harshly. But man let's face it, the fool shot himself in the foot in a crowded nightclub. He has to get at least a year for being so fucking stupid.

[jobycom]

24. The sentencing is part of the fable told to help pass concealed carry laws.

The fable goes "If you carry a gun with a license you are supremely responsible and will only use that gun to protect small children and helpless white women. The gun will never go off accidentally in a crowded club or train or anything else. If a gun goes off in someone's possession, it must be because the person carrying the gun is scary and mean, and not at all like the licensed gun carrier, who is pretty and awesome and could never accidentally hurt someone with a gun because he has a piece of paper and because if he accidentally hurt someone people might start to think guns were dangerous in anyone's possession. Therefore, when those carrying guns without a piece of paper creating their beatific awesomeness and law-abiding-ness have a gun accident, they must be more harshly punished, thus proving just how much of a powerful talisman that piece of paper really is. When those with the piece of paper hurt or kill someone, it is either clearly self-defense--no matter the circumstances--or a horrible, unavoidable accident."

Unavoidable by any means other than banning the goddamned death toys from public places in the first place, anyway. But that would resemble sanity, and only nations that have national health care programs would do something like that.

[anonymous171]

28. Stop trying to piggyback onto other reform issues. Your crusade died out years ago

The "death toys" are not going away. Get over it.

[jobycom]

35. Stop trying to misrepresent what I'm doing.

The death toys are still death toys, just like the Iraq war was still wrong even with 90% approval. They should be banned from public places, and I won't pretend to believe otherwise just because the little boys with their little toys have more support now.

[positrac]

40. What you are 'doing' is insulting every adult Democrat who exercises his or her Constitutional

right. Isn't it about time for the obligatory juvenile penis-extension comment?

[jobycom]

48. Only in your mind.

And I wouldn't make a juvenile penis-extension comment about the little Richards who like their death toys. I'm more intellectually endowed than to use such diminuitive jabs.

[rd_kent]

62. You dont seem to be "intellectually endowed" enough

to know that banning guns will not stop criminals from illegally carrying them.

[jobycom]

66. If your definition of intellectual endowment is

"Able to read bumper stickers and nothing else," I guess I'm lacking in that department.

[derby378]

65. That's like calling a ballot a "free speech toy"

Brush up on your Constitutional rights. What Burress did was stupid and reckless, but no amount of name-calling will change the fact that I'm on the right side of this debate.

[jobycom]

67. I guess you're right. I don't consider them toys.

But those who carry them seem to, with fantasies about slef-protection and going toe to toe with the US military to defend our freedoms.

And I know the Constitution, and history, well enough to know what the word "militia" means.

[positrac]

32. Indeed...banning them from Virginia Tech made everyone totally safe there.

...

[jobycom]

36. They didn't ban enough of them, or everyone would have been. nt

[positrac]

37. Excuse me, they banned ALL of them.

Oh, you say, the ban didn't work?

No shit.

[jobycom]

50. They didn't ban the ones he got ahold of.

He bought them legally, or as legally as most people do anything. The ban on campus didn't work because there were no effective bans off campus.

[Cid_B]

57. There ya go...

[positrac]

61. With logic such as that, who could possibly argue?

good grief

[Tim01]

46. D.C. , Chcago, New York City. Banning guns made these places virtually paradise. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. New York Law

That is why...

FYI this was excessive in my view and probation should have been enough...

[customerserviceguy]

27. It's because here in NY

we are so weeniefied, that we are willing to sentence a guy two two years in prison for being such an idiot that all he could do was shoot his own stupid self in the leg. In a western state, they would have just laughed at his silly ass, and let it go at that.

[spanone]

30. bloomberg wanted three years....

if he's that inept, lucky he didn't shoot someone else.

[nradisic]

39. NY Mandatory Sentecing Laws

Simple, in NY State, if you end up getting caught under any circumstances with an unregistered weapon, you get a mandatory 3 years in the State Penn...Plaxico had a clean record prior to agreeing to a plea arrangement that lowered his sentence to 2 years and he can be out in 16 months with good behaviour.

If the gun had been registered, he would probably have received probation....Moron.

[JackRiddler]

56. never mind

(why am I having an opinion about this case? sorry)

[Ken Burch]

41. Is there a reason he couldn't at least have left the SAFETY on?

(then again, somebody from the Pats could've slipped if off while he wasn't looking. They DID have motive, y'know.)

[Statistical]

43. Not all firearms have external safeties...

Take Glock for example.
If you pull the trigger it WILL fire.
If you don't pull the trigger it WON'T fire.

Of course putting a firearms in your pants it just plain stupid.

Even cowboys a hundred years ago learned holsters make it much safer to transport loaded firearms.

[Ken Burch]

53. Mr. Burress is lucky that the bullet didn't hit anything, ELSE...

n/t.

[Statistical]

60. Very much so.

My understanding is he came very close to hitting a security guard.

[benEzra]

54. The only manual safety was on the trigger; the other two were passive internal.

The idiot pulled the trigger, and the gun fired as designed. Which is why you (1) carry a gun in a holster, and (2) if you drop it, you let it fall to the floor and pick it up, instead of trying to grab it by the trigger. Modern guns are drop-safe, but they WILL fire if you take a firing grip and pull the trigger, whether it's pointed at your foot or not.

[undeterred]

42. Maybe the foot decided to press charges?

But since the foot also has to go to prison, it just doesn't seem right. :shrug:

[Statistical]

45. Cut it off and set it free then.

[BrklynLiberal]

47. It would seem obvious that he was sentenced for being so damn stupid....

AND what he did was totally illegal in NYC..for many reasons.

He just happened to luck out and only shoot himself...in the foot.
Too bad he did not make it impossible for himself to reproduce.

[tammywammy]

49. He pled guilty to a reduced sentence, there's mandatory sentencing in NY

"Burress, 32, pleaded guilty last month in state court in Manhattan to attempted possession of a weapon, as part of an agreement with prosecutors. He was indicted on more serious weapons-possession charges that carried a mandatory 3 1/2 years in prison."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&sid=aJ61CtI3BpoQ

[billyoc]

52. Oh, just you see what happens if you discharge a firearm on an Amtrak train.

*Decades* in prison.

[JackRiddler]

55. self-del

[pipoman]

59. As previously stated

it is important to read beyond headlines. Had you done that you would have known that the guns on Amtrak are locked and merely being transported with their owners while the other was a drunk guy illegally carrying a gun, like a complete fool, in the waist band of a pair of sweats.

By the way, where'd ya' go OP. Why do people post open ended questions, then never respond in the thread? Are they drunk when they post then forget they posted? Do they realize how wrong they were with their OP that they are embarrassed to show their faces? What?

[vincna]

63. Simple - you plead guilty and cut a deal with the prosecuter - nt

[yurbud]

64. easy: you press charges against yourself.

[TheKentuckian]

68. Count Plaxico was stupid with a weapon and literally could have killed someone

He was "lucky" and only shot himself. He is also super well known in that media market and was a very easy target for an example. If they'll throw the book at the town's star wideout then you know everyone else's ass is grass.

So, I think I understand both the need to punish someone for such reckless negligence and why Burress made such a perfect poster boy for being a moron do the time but I think they have taken this too far.
I believe it to be pretty extreme to lock someone with no criminal intent or prior record away with hard criminals especially for so long or to make a person a felon when the reality is they accidentally shot them self. It would have made just a good of an example to give the guy 12 months and a high misdemeanor. I think it is important and wise to keep the criminal minded and the people that did something stupid apart.

The Amtrak deal as I understand it simply allows unloaded weapons in checked luggage which I don't really see as comparable to discharging a weapon in a nightclub, even on accident.