Gun instructor’s ad ricochets
From the “Advertising gets results” file comes a story that shows any ads can stir up a buzz.
On a YouTube clip that has gone viral, Texas handgun instructor Crockett Keller defiantly told Muslims and non-Christian Arabs he won’t teach them how to handle a firearm, The Associated Press reported.
That got both officials and unofficial results.
First the official: The Texas Department of Public Safety sees the ad as possible discrimination, and may revoke Keller’s instructor license, but his ad has drawn both praise and condemnation.
But tens of thousands of YouTube viewers have watched the $175 ad for Keller’s business in the small community of Mason, which has won him some admirers but that embarrassed locals say misrepresents their community. Muslim groups dismissed the 65-year-old as a bigot.
Keller has received plenty of attention since his radio spot on a rural country music station in Mason County, about 100 miles east of Austin, went viral on the Internet.
The Texas Council on American-Islamic Relations called the ad ugly rhetoric undeserving of media attention. Others have called Keller’s phone number from the ad to personally tell him worse, including alleged death threats.
But Keller has also won over some fans. As he spoke with a reporter in his cabin, rancher Clyde McCarley knocked on his door and asked about signing up for a class.
“It’s mighty dadgum interesting to me that some people can say anything they want, and you make a statement and they bring down the house on you,” McCarley said.
TSA screeners find guns daily
Federal airport screeners still find four to five guns at checkpoints on a typical day, the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) chief told a Senate hearing on Nov. 2, according to CNN.
“Yesterday we found six, including one at … Bradley (airport in Connecticut)—a loaded gun with seven rounds in it, in a checked bag that (a passenger) was trying to get through,” Administrator John Pistole said.
Passengers typically say they forgot the weapon was in their bag, TSA officials said. But in one recent case, a passenger at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport tried to board a plane with two pistols, three ammunition magazines, eight knives and a hand saw in a carry-on bag, the TSA said. That passenger was arrested by local law enforcement.
More than 900 guns have been recovered at checkpoints this year, the TSA says.
Ex-cop kept guns he seized
From the “Only cops should have guns” file comes this report from the Mobile, AL, Press-Register.
A former Citronelle, AL, police officer violated the law when he kept a pair of handguns he took from motorists during his 11-year tenure on the force, a federal jury in Mobile decided.
The jury convicted Bill Eugene Newburn on two counts of possession of a stolen firearm. Under a preliminary calculation of advisory guidelines in his case, he faces at least a year and 9 months in prison and as much as 2 years and 3 months behind bars. The judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for Feb. 10.
Police Chief Shane Stringer has said the two incidents were among several complaints he received about similar conduct, although the other incidents did not come out during the two-day trial. During the trial, prosecutors contended that Newburn, 40, improperly kept guns that he took from two different people while a police officer and then lied to cover it up.
Defense attorney Rick Williams countered that his client took both guns lawfully and acted within the boundaries of his duties as a law enforcement officer.
However, Newburn never returned the guns to their rightful owners when told to do so. In one case, he told the owner the gun had been destroyed.
Acquitted woman gets 5 years
Is New York City hoplophobic or what?
A woman cleared of murder charges in the shooting death of her retired NYPD husband was sentenced to five years in prison on Nov. 10 for gun possession, a decision her lawyer described as disheartening. He said he would appeal.
In a case seen as a test of the battered-woman defense, Barbara Sheehan, 50, was acquitted of second-degree murder in October after her lawyers successfully argued that she fired a gun at her husband only after he threatened to kill her.
Reuters reported that she was sentenced in state Supreme Court in Queens to five years in prison and two years of probation on the unlawful gun possession charge, based on her use of her husband’s weapons to shoot him.
