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Police Swarm Bungie Office Over Halo Replica Rifle
sv_libertarian writes 'A panicked person in Kirkland, WA called local police on Wednesday, claiming they saw someone walking down the street with an AK-47. It was actually a Bungie employee carrying an overgrown model of a Halo sniper rifle, which resembles an AK-47 as much as a Volkswagen resembles a Formula 1 racer.'
Halo 3: ODST is set to launch on September 22nd, and fans got some new details and early looks at the game during PAX.
Yeah that looks just like an AK47...
Maybe Congress can attempt to pass an "Assault Replica" bill.
I've never understood the logic of banning a gun because it looks scary. American "assault rifles" are semi-automatic. Pull the trigger, and one shot comes out. Politicians want to ban them because they look intimidating next to, say, a standard bolt-action Ruger 30.06. This is like banning a V-6 equipped Camaro because "it looks fast".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
But it looks very much like something real to me. Sure you can make fun of people not knowing it does not look like an AK47. I can also imagine that somebody who knows very little about riffles would say 'ak47' where he means 'looks like an assault wepon that is not like any standard hunting rifle'.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
their way to the local farmer's market called 911 saying that they thought they saw someone walking down the street with an AK-47
I've seen people get paralyzed because a black beetle crawled across the kitchen counter. I suspect many people have the same irrational fear of guns, therefore if you carry ANYTHING that even resembles a gun their first instinct is to call for help (aka "call 911"). It's a phobia which is NOT rational, and it's no wonder they irrationally identified a toygun as an AK-47.
>>>officers advised Bungie officials to transport the gun more discretely in the future.
No. Read the Constitution mister cop (you know, that thing you pledged to protect, but apparently never read). Carrying a flag, sign, or other item is considered "symbolic speech" according to the Supreme Court and therefore protected.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Bullshit. The Americans are just scared of someone walking around.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
+1 Informative, -1 Angry Ranting Nerd.
Washington may be an open carry State, but are fully automatic firearms legal there? Are weapons with a caliber larger than .50 legal? Google before answering, and look at the size of the 'weapon' in question.
Under Washington law, it is an offence to open-carry with the intent to cause alarm. A bystander was alarmed enough to dial 911. It's up to an officer to determine whether that alarm was intentional.
So the police investigated, determined that no crime had been committed, and left some sensible advice. Advice, not orders. Seems about right to me.
Next time you hear about some scruffy looking guy dragging a massive gun down the street, and you choose to move towards that person, then you get to armchair quarterback police response to firearms calls. M'kay?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Whether it resembles an AK47 or not, it still looks like a scary looking piece of kit to the untrained eye. I know nothing about guns, and while it looks comically oversized, I wouldn't automatically assume it was fake.
As a part-time theatre tech, I sometimes have to transport fake guns for shows, and I always do it discreetly. Just because I know they are fake, doesn't mean other people will, or indeed should know. It's not like people take classes on gun recognition at school. Unless you have an interest in such things, I don't see why you would know what different guns look like.
Reminds me of that girl who strolled into an airport with circuit-boards, wires and blinking lights attached to her jumper, and was surprised when security got rather twitchy. It might not have looked like a bomb to you and I, but to the average person bought up on a diet of Hollywood films, where the bombs always have sticky out wires and flashing lights (and beep, just to let you know they are there), it certainly looked suspicious.
At least in this case the police were a bit more calm and restrained once they figured out what was going on.
Paul Leader
It's becoming more and more troublesome to have people use general terms for stuff they don't know. Instead they learn one specific term and apply it to the whole field. In this case, AK-47 instead of gun or automatic rifle, or for computers where every part of it is a hard drive. This is beginning to annoy me.
Well, with the exception of the UK (too far gone past 1984) this kind of shit doesn't happen in strictly gun-controlled western Europe, because seeing such a gun is so unlikely that most people will assume it's a toy or something.
Our pigs are just as fucktarded as the typical US donut muncher, but they have the luxury of not having to assume every jaywalker is going to start shooting. As a result, they still have to use their hands or not-100%-lethal flashballs to beat up journalists. Old school shit. Should they pull their guns, they would have to fill lots of forms afterwards, and that would considerably eat into their free time. So little time, so many pastis bottles to empty.
Anyway, I trust the 2nd amendment brigade will vote me down with thoughtful historical references to Hitler taking the guns of the Jews (that's exactly how WWII started) and Stalin denying conceal-carry to Sakkharov resulting in the Cuban missile crisis, but I thought you needed to be reminded of the cost of that particular hobby, err I mean "freedom."
Washington may be an open carry State, but are fully automatic firearms legal there?
An AK-47 is semi-auto, not full-auto, so your question is irrelevant.
Are weapons with a caliber larger than .50 legal?
Again, the AK-47 is *SMALLER*, so why are you asking?
Google before answering, and look at the size of the 'weapon' in question.
The police were called about an AK-47 - not a "big gun I don't know the name of", but (specifically) an AK-47. Seeing as the caller specifically said AK-47, the cop's response should have been "AK-47's are perfectly legal to carry in the open."
In the UK, this could easily result in prosecution for carrying a replica gun. I'm not opposed to that law.
The problem with your view is the fact that it is perfectly legal to carry an un-boxed assault rifle in Washington.
I would agree with you if he were brandishing it at people, that crosses the line, but just carrying it? Since when can you expect to be harrassed by the cops for doing something that is legal? I don't know what kind of world you want to live in, but extrapolate that out to other situations and you've got yourself a big-brother style police state.
What should have happened is this:
Irrational scared citizen: "There's a guy with an AK-47 out here, help!"
911 Operator: "Is the person pointing it at anybody?"
Irrational - "Well no, but he's going to shoot someone I know it!"
911 - "I'm sending a squad car out, stay on the line and tell me if he starts threatening people."
Now, if Bungee employee is dumbass enough to start pointing it at people, pretending it is real, he desearves what he gets. Same with someone brandishing a real gun. But if he's just carrying it, then the cop shows up, investigates, and tells the guy it would be a good idea to keep the gun in a case so he didn't frighten his neighbors.
Swarming Bungee is definitely overkill. If what someone is doing is suspicious but not illegal, you send someone out to make sure it doesn't become illegal, or they don't intend to do something illegal. Hell a few phone calls to nearby business would probably have hit Bungee and they'd have said "Oh shit, that's our employee, it's not a real gun, it's replica of a video game gun."
If you think that anytime someone sees a gun anywhere 911 should be called, you're an idiot. You're the dumbass who has been watching far, far too many mind-numbing action movies, and associates the mere presence of a gun with murder. You're an idiot, plain and simple.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
The police investigated a complaint involving someone walking around outside an office building with what appeared to be an assault rifle. Would you rather they had told the caller it was probably just a replica, and hung up? How were they to know it was an employee with a fake gun rather than, say, someone on his way to massacre the occupants of the building, without going over and investigating?
Walking around town with a fake gun that looks extremely real is just stupid and irresponsible. I dare anyone to walk around there own home town and see what will happen,because the police will come calling on you, thats a guarantee. Now maybe if it were the 1800,s you can get away with walking around town with a rifle but not today ya wont.
Jack of all trades,master of none
who did, in fact, break into his own house*
Your entire post is wrong, from the details to the conclusions.
What happened was that Gates & his driver couldn't get into the front door because it was jammed. He unlocked it just fine, but couldn't get it open. So then he went around to the back door, which opened just fine. Then with the help of his driver they forced the front door open, and carried the luggage inside the house... during which time a "concerned citizen" called police to report that a black man was breaking into a house.
Now I'm not saying that Gates was all in the right, from what I've heard he was pretty much a complete dickwad when the cops showed up, and from what I've heard, the cop was a complete dickwad as well. The fact that Gates had a key didn't matter apparently. The cop got pissed because Gates didn't supply an ID when the cop demanded one, which you actually don't have to do when you're inside a house. The cop additionally did not attempt to verify his identity, which could easily have been done with a phone call, he was too focused on being King Shit and throwing his "authority" around and mad as hell that a black man would dare to tell him no. This has been an ongoing problem with the police department, which is probably part of why Gates was pissed, and probably why this got so blown out of proportion.
Think about it this way. The cops show up at your house, acting like aggressive elitist assholes, and demand you provide proof of your identity (which you don't legally have to do), because some busybody neighbor doesn't like your skin color living on her street, and then force their way inside, and when you provide proof of ID and that you live there, they then arrest you because they didn't like your tone or attitude.. would you sit back and say "well, gee, I guess it way all my fault". Ya right, you'd be mad as hell, and have every right to be.
Everyone admits, Gates should have simply said, "Well, I live here. You have a report of a break-in, and my front door has obviously been forced open recently, so yes I understand why you need to talk to me. Hold on while I get some proof."
The cops should have showed up, and when the guy in the house got angry, simply said "Well we have a report of someone just breaking into your house. Since you don't want to provide ID we'll sit in front & back of your house until we can verify that there is not a break-in or proof of your ID".
That's great that you've instructed your children on "The Three Rules." Perhaps now you should learn them yourself? I sure hope they're not learning from your example.
I have two loaded handguns in my house right now.
And for my next trick, I'll copypasta the third rule, and perhaps you can compare these two statements and see what is amiss...
"3. ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use."
And that uppercase is the NRA's, not mine. Next time you get all sanctimonious and YayGuns!, maybe you shouldn't shoot (Hah! See what I did there?) yourself in the foot while doing it.
And while they called out the SWAT team for a replica gun, people shrug their shoulders at Labor Day traffic, which kills a lot more people than any shooting spree. Human beings are absolutely terrible at risk assessment.
The full weight of Labor Day traffic deaths is borne by fifty states and a population of 300 million people.
The 2006 Amish school shooting spree occurred within a one-room schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania.
The body count doesn't tell you everything you need to know.
Risk assessment isn't meaningful when a singular event overwhelms and devastates an entire community. When there are no mechanisms in place for recovery.
The loss of the Titanic became more than an indictment of the technology and management of the vessel.
It became an indictment of a social order in which the First Class passenger lives and Second and Third dies with her working class crew.
That - in an instant - changed the survival equation for everyone in every setting.
Bullshit. Nearly every major PD in America has carried AR-15's (civilian version of the M-16) in their patrol cars since shortly after the North Hollywood Shootout.
Considering you are incredibly unlikely to encounter someone carrying an actual assault rifle (no semi-auto EVIL BLACK RIFLES!!!!1111 are not assault rifles, most traditional hunting rifles are deadlier than "Assault Weaponsâ") and doing so is entirely legal, it is silly to send five cars after someone just carrying one. What next? Do you want the police to send five cars when someone sees a "hacker" (aka someone with glasses and a laptop) sitting outside an office building?
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
You're not far wrong... It doesn't look like an AK-47, but it looks scarily similar to a Barret M107.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=50+cal
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
To be fair, guns aren't used for much other than murder. That's kind of what they've been honed to do for hundreds of years...
I don't think guns need to be banned, but nobody seriously carries a gun around to shoot cans with.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
What is the point of having a car that can go faster then the posted speed limit? In America, we work from the premise that we are free and can do things until prohibited otherwise. You can puchase a car that goes 200mph and have no legal way of driving it that fast, it doesn't mean that all cars will have a 55 or 70 MPH governor installed, it means that you can possess it and need to be legally responsible with it. Other countries may operate differently in which you can't do anything without getting permission first. We have gotten there yet.
The main point of getting a car that can go faster than the posted speed limit is it will have much more power and be able to get to any desired speed faster than a car with a lower top speed. There are also plenty of places to use that speed (disused airfields, etc). There are ~0 legitimate reasons for having a silencer attached on public land
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
The stupid part is that anyone had to "vouch" for him in the first place. Not because he is famous either. It's not illegal to not have ID on you and he wasn't otherwise doing anything illegal. They could have questioned him but then he could have told them to go away. Apparently they brought him back to the hotel to be vouched for... which doesn't make any sense and is illegal if they forced him to do that.
There's about fifty different ways my kid could quickly and brutally kill themselves or another person in my house, and there are no guns. I won't argue about the concern for safety; but I'm not sure there's a sensible reason to single out the risk from guns, when the staircase or powersaw represents a greater real danger.
this:
1) a gun is a weapon.
2) a weapon is a tool.
3) such tools can be used to directly influence life.
4) any tool that can directly influence life also effects the socio/political balance of power.
5) both the government and the people want/maintain power, usually for the same reasons.
6) almost anything can be used as a weapon.
Limiting how a tool is used is the right of any society. But forbidding access to such a tool is a sort-sighted attempt to effect the balance of power.
Short-sighted because
6) almost anything can be used as a weapon.
Guns are powerful tools, but certainly not the only tools which can be used to threaten the balance of power.
The kind of corny phrase 'guns don't kill people' is still as true as ever. People can and do use almost anything at their disposal to do it.
Quack, quack.
In 1997, the year that the FBI estimated firearms, they said there were 200 Million firearms in the US. The prior estimate in 1994, said that Americans owned 192 Million firearms. Just using this as a baseline, figure that our country gains 8 million firearms every three years, or 2.6 Million firearms per year. Sounds reasonable.
Extrapolating that trend to 2006, in those 9 years it can be expected that we gained about 23.4 Million guns, for an approximate total of 230.4 Million.
In 2006 there were about 18,000 homicides by firearm, and there were approximately accidental 43,000 deaths by vehicle accident. A 2006 DOT study said there were 135,399,945 registered passenger (consumer level, not buses or big rig) vehicles in the US, a number not completely out of parity, but dwarfed by the estimated number of guns for the same year.
Those 135.4 Million cars accidentally killed over 2.3 times the number of people purposefully killed with those 223.3 Million guns. That tells me, pretty plainly that American gun owners take great personal responsibility over the use of their guns... They are in fact much more careful with guns than everyone else is with their cars--considering you have to be licensed, insured and all the regulations you need to obey to drive, while you need none of that to own a gun, I think that's quite exceptional. You're welcome to check my math and statistics, but I think they're pretty close--certianly within horseshoe and hand grenade rules.
That also tells me that your theory (paraphrasing) "if you have the power you're going to use it more often" is completely bogus, and that Americans are actually quite habitually GOOD and responsible people; because while they COULD go on a bloody and murderous rampage (they have the tools after all), THEY DO NOT. When you consider that the bulk of those 18000 firearms related deaths were committed by a small minority (mostly by inner city gangs and such), you know, I think the law abiding American gun owner deserves a Gold Star.
While we're on the topic of guns and cars, it should be noted that a 4000lb car is a much better weapon with which to mow dozens of people down, than any firearm citizens are able to own.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.