NYC: No guns under your bed

AmmoLand

Buckeye, AZ –-(Ammoland.com)- Another professional athlete is in hot water over a gun.

New York Knicks starting Point Guard, Raymond Felton Was arrested on February 25 2014 on two felony gun charges.

Unlike the NFL’s Plaxico Burress, who was illegally carrying a gun in a New York City nightclub and accidentally shot himself in the leg, or fellow NBA player Gilbert Arenas who had several guns in his locker at the Verizon Center in downtown Washington, DC, and involved them in a “practical joke” threat against another player, Felton’s crime involved having a single, loaded handgun in a bag under the bed in his apartment.

The only thing that made the gun illegal was the fact that the apartment is in New York City.

Felton was originally reported to be facing a minimum of 3 and a half – and a maximum of 7 – years for just the primary charge of criminal possession of a firearm. Later reports indicate that prosecutors went with 2 downgraded felony charges that carry one-year minimum sentences, and a misdemeanor. Both minimum sentences can be substituted with community service and probation at the judge’s discretion. There are a slew of other state and city charges that could have been stacked on if prosecutors had wanted to, including the crime of having too many rounds in a magazine under New York’s new SAFE Act.

There could be more to this story; there are claims that Felton had previously used the gun to threaten his wife during arguments, but those claims are unsubstantiated. She was the one who gave the gun to police though. Mrs. Felton had her attorney take the gun to a local police precinct while her soon-to-be ex-husband was playing a game against the Dallas Mavericks at Madison Square Garden. She had filed for divorce a week prior and claimed that she was scared to have the gun in the house.

If Felton threatened his wife with a gun, there is no excuse for that, and he deserves to face consequences for it, but that is not the charge. Under the current charge, Felton’s only crime was to have a loaded pistol in his own home without special permission from the government – something that should never be a crime, and only is in a handful of places in the US. Contrary to what the politicians and the media would have us believe, the “gun culture” is part of the dominant culture in this country.

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