7 year old faces felony charges for firing BB gun!

[ShooterInPA1]

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/loca...-bb-gun/nXBJb/

The kid should be punished of course, but felonies?

[brianinpa]

I am not sure which is more maddening: the article or the comments after the article.

[Shodan]

Nice parenting - unfortunately that reply gets used much too often.

[BlueTrooper]

Should he have his "BB gun" taken away for awhile and be taught better gun safety, proper handling of a weapons, and what not to shoot across? Yes.

Should he face felony charges? No.

Should they consider a FREAKING BB GUN a FIREARM!? HECK NO. (Sorry, just a little outraged at the thought of them callings a BB gun a firearm.)


I had a similar experience to what this kid had. Out back of my house is a hill, we own a lot of the hill. Because it was open, and had a really good backstop of hill, I took my .22 pellet rifle out to do some target practice. There's an alley way, public road, that runs in between our yard and the hill. I was on the hill side of the alley, so I wasn't shooting across it.

Well, about 10 min into my target practice, this guy from a block away, walks all the way down the alley, to yell at me. He threatened to call the police if I continued to shoot. He also threatened to call the police for sure and take it away if he saw me with it again. He never did see me with it again, but I still kept shooting with it, and doing target practice. This was 6 or 7 years ago. I wonder how he'd react if I started shooting it again up towards the hill.... Hnnn, should I try it? Aye or Nay?

[harold63]

Being made an example of?? When I was 7 or 8, me and two friends of mine were shooting cars at the GM dealer in town, which was right beside his house. Behind the dealership was nothing but woods. After I got to ride to jail with my friends and got my ass tore up when I got home did I learn that some things you just can't shoot at. I've been pretty good about it, since.

A little responsibility and parenting, folks.....or an exorcism.

[libra8]

Should he have his "BB gun" taken away for awhile and be taught better gun safety, proper handling of a weapons, and what not to shoot across? Yes.

Should he face felony charges? No.

Should they consider a FREAKING BB GUN a FIREARM!? HECK NO. (Sorry, just a little outraged at the thought of them callings a BB gun a firearm.)


I had a similar experience to what this kid had. Out back of my house is a hill, we own a lot of the hill. Because it was open, and had a really good backstop of hill, I took my .22 pellet rifle out to do some target practice. There's an alley way, public road, that runs in between our yard and the hill. I was on the hill side of the alley, so I wasn't shooting across it.

Well, about 10 min into my target practice, this guy from a block away, walks all the way down the alley, to yell at me. He threatened to call the police if I continued to shoot. He also threatened to call the police for sure and take it away if he saw me with it again. He never did see me with it again, but I still kept shooting with it, and doing target practice. This was 6 or 7 years ago. I wonder how he'd react if I started shooting it again up towards the hill.... Hnnn, should I try it? Aye or Nay?

Aye. 10char

[flyingjunkie]

This is ridiculous... The kid is 7 years old. Do they really think he's going to comprehend what's happening to him thru all this? Do they really think he's going to understand what a felony is and means?

At the end of the day, this kid needs his BB Gun taken away from him for a good while and his hide tanned with a belt. He'll learn his lesson.

[DennisH82]

The kid is being used to prove a point for ome dumb as political a-hole. This should be taken care of at the parents level not with the local and state governments, jeeze...

[Gun]

This county does not have restrictions according to this article; https://www.ammoland.com/2014/12/nc-...#axzz5G7sKyiqb
with regards to air guns.

The child could still be charged with an assault with a deadly weapon.

Assault with a Deadly Weapon

The situation is similar with respect to assault with a deadly weapon. Consider In re Lawson, 2002 WL 31166914 (N.C. Ct. App. Oct. 1, 2002) (unpublished). In Lawson, a juvenile was adjudicated delinquent for AWDWISI after he shot someone with a BB gun causing a bleeding wound in the victim’s thigh. The court of appeals found the evidence insufficient to support the adjudication, emphasizing that the weapon was a BB gun; that the shot was not from close range; and that the state introduced little to no evidence “as to the deadly nature of the weapon.” By contrast, in State v. Pettiford, 60 N.C. App. 92 (1982), the court of appeals held that it would not have been error to instruct the jury that a pellet pistol was a deadly weapon per se in a case in which the defendant shot the victim in the head, at close range, with what the defendant claimed was a .38 caliber pellet pistol, leaving a bullet fragment in the victim’s head. (As an aside, I’m not aware of the existence of .38 caliber air guns, or of air gun ammunition that is likely to fragment, so I’m not sure what was really going on in Pettiford.)

Based on the foregoing, my view is that evidence that A assaulted B with an air gun is probably sufficient to charge AWDW, unless there is conclusive evidence that the gun is sufficiently weak that it could not be considered deadly. However, in order to support a conviction, the state may need to introduce evidence of the weapon’s deadliness, including its status as a pellet gun; its muzzle velocity; its penetrating ability; the range at which it was used; the part of the body at which it was fired; and the injury it caused, if any.

https://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/air-guns/

But that seems a stretch considering the circumstances.

[:-)]

This is what happens when you don't teach right from wrong and don't supervise a seven year old. The kid shouldn't be the one in trouble with the law, he is seven.