A Michigan man whose 2-year-old daughter shot herself in the head with his revolver last week pleaded not guilty after becoming the first person charged under the state’s new law requiring safe storage of guns.
Michael Tolbert, 44, of Flint, was arraigned Monday on nine felony charges including single counts of first-degree child abuse and violation of Michigan’s gun storage law, said John Potbury, Genesee County’s deputy chief assistant prosecuting attorney.
Tolbert’s daughter remained hospitalized Wednesday in critical condition from the Feb. 14 shooting, Potbury said. The youngster shot herself the day after Michigan’s new safe storage gun law took effect.
Finally, a sensible gun law.
It will get challeged to the Supreme Court and struck down.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/
“In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.”
I just don’t understand the US and the 2nd. You’re not allowed to have a lot of various weapons and it just states that people can be “armed”, which could mean a lot of things. And even then, having a gun stored away safely is absolutely not infringing on that right either, as long as you have access to it. This is just obsessive gun fetishism and it constantly gets people killed, including little kids.
It’s literally gun fetishism. Full stop.
The people who will angrily defend 2a are perfectly happy watching children die if it means they get to keep their guns. They’ll give you all kinds of excuses, they’ll come up with all manner of justifications, but the truth is, they just like feeling powerful and are willing to sacrifice innocent lives for it.
The Supreme Court has ruled that you’re allowed “bearable arms”, so essentially anything that can be carried, for self defense. And that requiring a weapon be kept locked up defeats the purpose of self defense.
Oregon has a law that requires guns be locked up, but dodges the self defense aspect by allowing an exception for guns under the direct control of the owner.
So if I’m home and in direct control of my guns, they don’t have to be secured. If I leave home or am not otherwise present, they do.
Just look at it through the lens of “would this increase or decrease the profits of the gun lobby?” and everything falls into place.
I just don’t understand the US and the 2nd.
It is complicated and a lot of people are ignorant.
This isn’t preventing him from getting a firearm this is charging somebody with improper storage of a firearm. Not sure how likely it is the supreme Court will rule against it but it’s different than the laws challenged so far
Theses fucks are going to suggest that any mandate on how a person keeps their gun (as in in a box, in a safe, etc) is a restriction on their rights.
Doesn’t seem much different than a parent getting charged when their kids find their stash of drugs and consume them or take them to school.
As a felon, legally, they couldn’t get the gun in the first place but that’s not going to stop a lot of felons.
This isn’t preventing him from getting a firearm
Well, that depends on what you mean. If you mean “it would still be possible for him to illegally acquire or make a firearm,” yes. In fact it looks like he was already a felon in possession (or prohibited possessor) before this incident, clearly this specific guy can get guns regardless of the law.
But if you mean “this does nothing in a legal sense to bar him from arms possession,” actually being indicted on a felony count will pop up on NICs if it has been entered properly, and if it isn’t input properly and he does a 4473, he now has another felony count for lying on the form. Once this conviction hits, it’ll be added to the list, so his prior felony convictions for drugs/firearms related stuff and his felony conviction for safe storage will flag in NICs, this guy will never legally be able to buy a gun again.
Like I said though, “legal” and “possible” are two very different things, just depends on what we mean.
Where does the 2A say anything about “immediate self-defense”? Oh that’s right, no where. Fuck SCOTUS
In the context of the second amendment what do you think the word bear means? I’m not convinced that this law would violate what I think bear means. If it’s not on or near your person, I don’t mind it needing to be locked.
And fuck whoever decided these posts fall under the definition of “speech” too, right? Right?
Doubt SCOTUS ever touches this.
The language matters A LOT: Michigan’s mirrors California’s, which would absolutely hold up to any constitutional challenge because it requires negligence with an adverse outcome. Michigan’s and California’s basically say you’re a criminal if two things are met: you had any plausible expectation of a child being around, AND something bad actually happens.
Every states are a little different, and at the other end of the intelligence spectrum are New Jerseys and New Yorks, and nobody even cared to challenge those yet. New Jerseys statute says you’re a criminal, regardless of circumstances, if the guns are not locked up per some collection of criteria at all times when you’re not actively accessing them. I do know that most of New Jerseys rare prosecutions are actual bullshit, for example a cop going door to door to gun owners because of some local crime, asking to see someone’s gun to check it and not liking that the safe in the room he was in when they showed up was not completely locked (never mind he lives alone). Expect any challenge to arise there.
If SCOTUS does throw out all storage laws, it’ll be because of politicians who care more about their resume than about writing really good laws.
IIRC there’s already a storage law being challenged, I can’t remember if it’s California or somebody else. CA also has the magazine size ban.
They did leave some wiggle room which has allowed the law here in Washington to stick around. Basically if there is a reasonable possibility that a person who is not allowed to handle firearms would have access to them, you can apply restrictions. Guns here have to either be on your person or locked if there is a possibility that your kids could access them.
And yet still another kid dead.
Congrats on passing that super effective gun law, dude!
I do not understand how a parent can be so irresponsible as to leave a gun easily accessible in a house with children. Kids are really really resourceful. Its bit like keeping a hyper intelligent racoon inside with a drive to kill itself through curiosity. Guy definitely deserves charges
Because a gun lock is liberal and gay and if you use one you basically are announcing to the world you just bought Beyoncé tickets.
Man how fucked is this timeline that I had to scratch my head a bit over whether this was a sincere response or a caricature of a particular US demographic?
I wrote the goddamn thing and even then I was like holy shit that almost comes off sincere
A few weeks ago, a stud football player was being called gay by Conservatives because he had the audacity to date a woman over the age of 30.
This is where we are as society. It’s fascinating.
Know when you see a conservative meme and think, “Fuck they’re dumb. Nobody talks or thinks that way.”
That’s you. Right now.
A not guilty plea was entered Monday on behalf of Tolbert, who also faces one count each of felon in possession of a firearm, felon in possession of ammunition, lying to a peace officer in a violent crime investigation and four counts of felony firearm, Potbury said.
He said Tolbert is barred from possessing firearms and ammunition because he has multiple firearms-related felony convictions and drug-related convictions.
This guy is already not a winner. I was going to make a comment like “even with improper storage putting him in prison is going to hurt the family more than what’s already happened”, but given his record, going back to prison might be a net benefit for society. Hopefully any other kids in this family will have someone to take better care of them.
It doesn’t take much to understand it. He’s from Flint. If you know the area, there’s a lot of reciprocal violence. He has previous offenses. It’s hard to get out. He probably knows plenty of people who’ve had loaded guns around their kids and nothing ever happened.
Yes, he deserves the charges, but like, this isn’t some gentrified place. As a society, we really aren’t helping folks in depressed urban areas to get better lives either.
I do not understand how a parent can be so irresponsible as to keep a weapon designed only to maim or kill in their house with their children.
The farther you get from America, the more woefully absurd it sounds. But, right in the middle of America, it’s a very different place.
And at this point in time, gun fetishism has gone meta-static and is afflicting many different states.
And it’s not the possession of guns alone: I’ve seen the exposé where Switzerland’s gun culture is compared, and questions are asked about how they can have one gun per adult and still suffer an almost non-existent rate of accidents and murders. A lot of it resembles the 1950s where kids would be part of a school .22 target rifle team, store their guns and ammo on the premises and still no one got hurt.
I really think it’s the worship of guns, where Meal Team 6 tries to emulate cowboys of old, and fails on every level.
Honestly I just think it’s irresponsible people. No proof but I have a hunch that Americans tend to be more laid-back with things like firearms than people in Switzerland might be. We used to be more careful but we got far too comfortable with them.
I mean you can make the same argument about items like a bow and arrow, crossbows, and swords. There are valid reasons to have weapons in the house however they should be locked up so that they aren’t accessible normally.
What are valid reasons to keep something designed to maim and kill in your home?
I wouldn’t focus on his plea. He’s likely doing this on the advice of his lawyer to secure plea deal. Initial charges always very harsh and this is a pretty common tactic in American court. It’s like companies who won’t say “you’re sorry” because it opens them up to liability.
First of all, I agree with you that guns should be locked up if there’s going to be kids/morons around them. I want to add that there’s also a responsibility if you have both guns and children in your house that you should be teaching the children not to touch them (this is probably a good idea even if you don’t have guns and live in the USA). DO NOT TOUCH THE GUNS was drilled into me and my siblings for longer than I can remember. My grandfather kept a rack of long guns in the back bedroom of their house where we would sometimes play as kids and none of use ever even looked at them for more than a few seconds without somebody being like “don’t touch those”. I do consider that to be irresponsible as fuck but my point is education would certainly help prevent injuries if a kid did happen to get access to a gun.
I mean I completely agree with you and that is definitely a rule in my house however if a parent can’t be bothered to lock up their gun I’m not entirely sure they’re going to bother teaching their kid not to touch the gun.
Surprised that’s a new law. In NM recently, in a particularly stupid case, some 14 year old kid shot his friend, a girl, I think on accident… then dragged her body outside and made up an idiotic story about how it was a unknown-motive drive-by and someone in a black SUV shot her. Anyway, his dad had a ton of guns just casually laying around their trailer or house or whatever. The father has been charged with ‘negligent making a firearm accessible to a minor resulting in death’.
He pled not guilty? Really?
That can be a claim, whether or not they’re disputing the basic facts, that the situation doesn’t match the specific crime the defendant is accused of.
If he plead guilty he’d be accepting a felony charge and would have to give up his guns. He’s probably holding out for a plea that lets him keep them.
He was already a felon:
A not guilty plea was entered Monday on behalf of Tolbert, who also faces one count each of felon in possession of a firearm, felon in possession of ammunition, lying to a peace officer in a violent crime investigation and four counts of felony firearm, Potbury said.
He said Tolbert is barred from possessing firearms and ammunition because he has multiple firearms-related felony convictions and drug-related convictions.
Pretty shitty parent/person prioritizing his guns over the safety of his two-year old.
