Tuesday - July 07, 2009

another deliberate misdirection

Much is being made in the media of the murder of retired football star Steve McNair. Yes, it’s an awful thing. But let’s step back from the glare for a moment. This guy, married and a father of 4 children, had his little chippy on the side, this Sahel Kazemi, aged 20 . He paid for her apartment, he bought her a Cadillac Escalade. She thought he was going to divorce his wife and marry her. Same old story. My guess is that she was on the verge of getting dumped, and knew it. The two of them were pulled over for drunk driving just two nights before the murder; obviously one or both of them realized that that incident would open the bag and let the cat out; their secret relationship would not be secret for very much longer. So it was decision time. Isn’t it interesting that she purchased a gun that very same day, just a few hours after the traffic stop? That leads me to wonder whether A) she was in fear for her life; that the disclosure of their illicit relationship would get her killed, or B) she was a psycho, and realized their thang was in trouble, and had that Fatal Attraction “if I can’t have him, then nobody can” attitude.

But let’s cut through the crap, at least the crap surrounding the gun issue. This is not a death that can be blamed on “the gun culture” as New York Daily News sports writer Mike Lupica wrote. If you need a culture to blame this on, blame it on the jock culture or the adultery culture that countenances famous athletes and other rich guys keeping a bit of tail on the side.

Furthermore, CNN and any number of other news reports are bending the facts. The gun Sahel purchased didn’t just come from “somewhere”. It was purchased. Legally. From a private owner. Many of these journalists are bending the truth when they question how Sahel, 20, purchased the pistol when Tennessee law says you have to be 21 to carry a pistol. Um, hello? You need to be 21 to carry the thing, but you only need to be 18 to buy one. Huge difference there. Yes, it’s a bit confusing, since federal law requires that a purchaser be 21 to buy a pistol from a federally licensed dealer. But that same law allows for a personal sale to take place when the buyer is 18.

And the local police are playing that same game:

Police found a semiautomatic pistol beneath Kazemi’s body and determined that she bought it Thursday night, Nashville Metropolitan Police Department Spokesman Don Aaron said Monday. He said he didn’t know whether it was a legal purchase but noted that Kazemi wouldn’t meet the age requirement for a permit to carry a handgun, which is 21.

Complete bullshit misdirection. The cops knew within seconds of running the gun’s serial number if it was legally purchased, who the reported owner was, or if it had been reported stolen. And they know damn well what the minimum purchase age is as well.

So let’s knock off the crap. Yes, this is a tragic situation. But let’s not play politics with it, and let’s not bend the truth. Report the facts. And know the law (especially if you are a police officer): see 18 USC 922 (b)(1), 18 USC 922 (c)(1), 18 USC 922 (x)(2), 18 USC 922(x)(5).

If the gun was purchased from a legitimate private owner then the sale was legal. If the gun was a “street gun”, previously stolen etc., then the purchase was illegal. “didn’t know” is equivocation at worst, or yet another case of an improperly informed “spokesman”.

But when does the unvarnished truth ever get reported when the story involves guns?

Posted by Drew458     on 07/07/2009 at 08:17 AM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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