Odd
First, here’s the story:
A Flushing man arrested last week for allegedly threatening his sister with a handgun was arraigned on a litany of gun charges after police found more than six dozen weapons in his home, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Leos Tseng, 29, of 141-04 Laburnum Ave., was arraigned before Queens Criminal Court Judge Steve Paynter last Thursday on several charges of criminal possession of a weapon as well as menacing and resisting arrest stemming from his Aug. 6 arrest, according to the DA. A spokesman for Brown said Tseng was held on $500,000 bail and faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
Now, the guys at subguns.com say that at the press conference, all but a few of the weapons were Airsoft toys. Are the press and the police really going to leave that fact out of the story?
Update: Lots more info from SM in comments.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Of COURSE they are! If the general public can’t tell the difference, why would the media want to inform them? To paraphrase the VPC, “imitation weapons” are a new problem – anything that looks like a machine gun is perceived to be a machine gun.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:42 am
My google-fu is mighty.
This article includes a very small photo. The NYC police are all lined up like they killed a lion or caught a shark or something. Breathless quote:
(emphasis mine)
Second article seems to have a photo, but I’ll just bet it’s a stock photo. There is a video, but it’s real audio or some crap and I haven’t figured out how to watch them on w/ linux yet. Can anyone report?
“Most bloggers wouldn’t last an hour under the journalistic quality control that a newspaper demands.” -Liz Garrigan
August 24th, 2007 at 10:45 am
my google-fu may be mighty, but my html sucks without a preview button. Oh well, close enough.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Article with flash video player of a TV news report. Reporter pans over the “arsenal” that is “large enough to equip a small army”. Have at it.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:13 am
The flash video linked above does have a correction (err “clarification”):
Other that that though, the new article was [sarcasm] fair, balanced, and totally unbiased. [/sarcasm]
Anyone know the legality of those deadly assault airsoft silencers? Packing.org seems to be down.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:34 am
500 rounds and some tracers? Big deal.
Most of those swords and knives were peices of junk you can get from any catalog.
Now the fun comes as to where they trace all those guns to assuming they were real and not AS.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
As far as I know, only suppressors for firearms require a Fed tax stamp. Suppressors for air guns (or spring guns) aren’t regulated as long as they can’t be used with an actual firearm.
August 24th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Most of them are obviously airsoft, at least unless Glock decided to really aim for the plastic market and go for gold with clear slides.
The guy’s 29 years old and lives with his family, and is stupid enough to get a domestic assault charge placed against him. I find it hard to defend him, but I find it harder to believe he has 4000 USD worth of functional firearms and real swords spread across his bed.
August 24th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Steve Stirling, the print reporter, can be called at 718 229 0300, ext 138. I got his machine and asked him if he was going to tolerate the police lying to a reporter about toy firearms. I reminded him that toys, and toy silencers, are NOT illegal and the police KNOW the difference between an airsoft gun and a firearm.
My guess is he is OK with the lying because it helps to defeat gun rights, but you never can tell. He might actually have a piece of a journalistic ethic still rattling around somewhere.
August 24th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
This press conference is exactly the kind of thing that grows contempt for the police. They are lying through their teeth. The policemen ought to be fired on the spot for damaging LEO credibility.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
What Goddamned credibility?
August 24th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Your home is not a home, but a “compound” and your guns are your “arsenal”.
Tho, tho, thscawy.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Since Bloomberg, Pataki, Spitzer, Schumer, et al always seem to complain about “out of state firearms” somehow finding their way into Gotham, the cops need to list these weapons on Gunbroker or GunsAmerica for out of state sale.
I like that nickel Colt Python, which doesn’t appear to have the orange tip on the muzzle.
Maybe the perp actually removed the orange tip, which has to be the same class felony of removing the label on a mattress.