Any time there’s a carve-out for police in a state’s gun control laws, I get angry.
Police shouldn’t get special treatment when it comes to gun laws. They’re not immune to being criminal, as we’ve seen in way too many instances over the years. Most are good, sure, but so are most average gun owners. Why do police warrant special treatment on their personal ownership of firearms?
And even if they’re not criminals, they can be just as irresponsible as anyone else.
In fact, that irresponsibility has landed one NYPD officer in hot water.
A Queens NYPD officer kept 15 unsecured guns scattered around his house, all potentially within reach of his 15-month-old girl, prosecutors allege.
Jason McLeod, 37, kept one of his guns loaded on a living room coffee table, another in a kitchen cabinet, and others still under his bed, in his closets and in his bedside table drawer, according to a criminal complaint.
…
The tot was present in the home when police arrived, prosecutors said.
The officers found two handguns in an unlocked drawer in his bedside table, along with another handgun and three shotguns under the bed, according to the complaint.
In one unlocked bedroom closet they found three more handguns stashed in two plastic bags, along with two more shotguns in shotgun bags, the complaint alleges.
Another unlocked closet in the same bedroom contained a safe — closed but unlocked — with three more handguns, as well as some magazines of ammo, the complaint alleges.
Cops found McLeod’s daughter in a crib in the same bedroom where weapons were stored, the complaint alleges.
The child’s mother, who lives in the home, called the authorities to report the behavior.
It also seems that McLeod was required to inform the department about off-duty weapons, but only one of the discovered guns was on that list. That might not be illegal, but it’s likely to cost him his job.
Now, if this were an infant who was kept in a crib or play yard or something most of the time, you could see someone trying to make the case that there wasn’t really anything wrong with not keeping the guns locked up when you’re home.
But this is a toddler running around, which means old enough to see something interesting, pick it up when no one is looking, and then do something that results in a tragedy.
It should be noted that New York has a mandatory storage law, which this officer figured didn’t apply to him. Considering the carve-out in gun control laws for cops being so common, I can see why he’d think that. However, so far as I can find, the state has no such carve-out in this particular measure.
Whoops.
Look, even if it wasn’t the law, just basic common sense would tell you not to keep guns just lying around when you’ve got a toddler. It might be easy for a non-parent to say you should just keep an eye on them and everything would be fine, but parents know that toddlers aren’t that easy to keep an eye on. They’re faster than Usain Bolt the moment you have to look away and can be four states away in the blink of an eye if they have a mind to be. You’re simply not going to keep a close enough eye on them that they can’t get into any mischief.
And when guns are lying around, things can get ugly very quickly.
My thing is that police are humans. Giving them special treatment on guns makes no sense. Everyone should be treated the same before the law, which means that we should get the same carve-outs police officers get.
That’s the only just thing to do.
Read the full article here
