I can’t make head or tails of this story, lets see if you can:
A Lycoming County judge was right to dismiss an illegal firearms possession charge state police filed against a man who accidentally shot himself in the foot, the state Superior Court ruled this week.
Darral Dickerson’s odd run-in with the law began in May 2012 when he arrived at Williamsport Hospital with a gunshot wound to the inside of his right foot.
At first, the 32-year-old New York City man told police an unknown person had shot him while he was at a scenic overlook along Route 15. The trajectory of the bullet contradicted that story, however, and when police pressed him further Dickerson admitted he had accidentally shot himself with a rifle.
Officers then charged him with illegal firearms possession because they concluded he was ineligible to have a gun in Pennsylvania because he had prior drug possession convictions in New York.
Dickerson pleaded guilty to the illegal gun possession charge in September 2012, but almost immediately asked to withdraw his plea, arguing that he was in fact not guilty of violating Pennsylvania law. What ensued was a battle over the equivalency calculations for interstate criminal charges.
The district attorney’s office contended that Dickerson’s two seventh-degree drug possession convictions in New York – both misdemeanors – should have triggered a gun possession ban in the Keystone State. Both New York convictions involved cocaine.
County Judge Marc F. Lovecchio concluded that prosecutors were making too much of a legal stretch, however.
He noted that Dickerson’s New York convictions carried maximum possible penalties of up to one year in prison. Yet Pennsylvania’s gun possession ban doesn’t kick in for out-of-state or federal criminal convictions whose top penalties don’t exceed two years behind bars, Lovecchio observed.
Lovecchio dismissed the case against Dickerson. Prosecutors appealed, but the Superior Court found the county judge had “comprehensively and correctly” ruled in Dickerson’s favor.
Source: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/01/man_who_accidentally_shot_hims.html
So let me see if I get it, felons are not supposed to own guns, but, if you commit a crime in New York City and you didn’t go to jail for more than 2 years, it’s OK to buy an illegal gun in Pennsylvania? Frankly, from a purist view of the Second Amendment, this man committed no crime, felons get back their First Amendment rights when they leave prison, so why not the Second Amendment? On the other hand, we’ve seen how the State sometimes treats law-abiding citizens like felons if the violate the tiniest provision, rules that the politicians themselves ignore.
Darral Dickerson should consider himself extremely lucky, change you ways, Mr. Dickerson, and keep your finger off the trigger the next time you’re holding a gun.
