New Castle man sentenced in school gun case

[Birds Away]

I really don't care about the idiot who took the gun to school. My real concern is why the judge ordered the guns to be destroyed. What the heck did they do? If you were stopped for taking your dog someplace that it is not permitted would they shoot the dog?

 

[GuyRelford]

Then how do they convict people for OWI, when they are merely in the vehicle sleeping it off in some parking lot?

Just one of those inconsistencies I've always wondered about.

"The law is what I say it is," I guess.

I'm not saying you wouldn't have an argument. (In fact, I fully believe that I could win that argument.) But not every "sleeping drunk in a car" case results in an OWI conviction - not by a long shot - because it's possible to raise a reasonable doubt as to whether the sleeping drunk had ever actually operated while being intoxicated. And keep in mind that you have to remain "operating" the vehicle at all times to remain within the defined exception. In an OWI case, the prosecution only has to prove that at some point you operated while intoxicated.

What I am saying is that personally I wouldn't risk a felony conviction to find out whether that same argument would work here, because we don't have a case in Indiana that addresses the "parked with the engine off" scenario. YMMV.

Guy

 

[theweakerbrother]

I really don't care about the idiot who took the gun to school. My real concern is why the judge ordered the guns to be destroyed. What the heck did they do? If you were stopped for taking your dog someplace that it is not permitted would they shoot the dog?

 

[kludge]

But not every "sleeping drunk in a car" case results in an OWI conviction - not by a long shot - <snip> In an OWI case, the prosecution only has to prove that at some point you operated while intoxicated.

Thanks, Guy, that makes more sense now.

And no, I don't plan on being a test case, however, in my situation, I do need to be careful, because in a drop-off scenario -- by the letter of the law -- if my wife is driving and I'm in the passenger's seat, it's "technically" a felony if I'm the one with the gun in my holster, since I'm not the the one "operating" the vehicle.