Maye’s gun
District Attorney Buddy McDonald emailed me yesterday to tell me the gun Maye used to shoot Officer Jones was unregistered, and possibly stolen.
Of course it’s unregistered, as the state of Mississippi does not require guns to be registered, as our friends at the Brady Campaign will attest. So, the claim that the gun is unregistered is, well, silly. As to stolen, Radley reports that doesn’t seem to be the case either.
December 13th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
The DA is feeling the heat and is now trying desparately to cover his ass.
December 13th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
What is even more disturbing is that the DA probably believes registration is required in Mississippi.
December 13th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
No, I doubt the DA thinks registration is required. Rather, he probably thinks Radley is just another typical idiotic investigative journalist who will buy whatever line the police feed him.
December 13th, 2005 at 2:17 pm
And uh….the policeman’s who got killed…was HIS gun registered?
I’m just waiting for the DA to start ranting and cut off the flow of information when it becomes apparant the Radley can’t be fooled or sidetracked, and is, in fact, determined to pursue the truth.
How could a DA prosecute this case? Has he NO shame?
December 13th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
I wouldn’t bet that the DA doesn’t know that “Registration” isn’t required.
I’ve stopped being appalled at how ignorant prosecutors and police can be about the law.
Now, personally, that should have been a disbarrable offense, using something blatantly false and wrong about state level gun laws, to defend the prosecution.
But, nothing will happen to McDonald. Other than he’s probably surprised why we care, but he’s not looking at losing his job, money, spending time in the clink. So why not be intentionally ignorant? (Answer, because when the rest of us find out about his prosecutorial misdeeds (alleged!), and we say “Wait, there’s no registration, and shouldn’t the friggen DA know this?”, he looks even worse. But usually, people don’t think about that first).
December 13th, 2005 at 6:21 pm
Maybe the DA can instruct Balko on how to register a gun in Mississippi.
Perhaps our humble correspondent, Balko, can also ask the DA what Mississippi’s current poll tax rate is.
Mississippi law enforcement may need to instruct its officers that search warrants are address specific and don’t apply to the general neighborhood of the premises to be searched.
The deceased officer paid a high price to learn that legal subtlety.
December 13th, 2005 at 7:23 pm
I’m sure its just a character flaw of mine and applies to no one else…but I find myself getting steamed when getting the BS/run-around by someone who is charged with official duties. Not registered? POSSIBLY stolen?
Wonder what happened to Maye’s kid that he defended with his life?
December 14th, 2005 at 9:38 am
[…] We knew that already. Radley also has a rundown on the story with new facts, notably: The narcotics task force did have a warrant for Cory Maye’s apartment. […]