A Superior Court judge today ruled a blind gun hobbyist from Rockaway Township who accidentally shot himself while cleaning a weapon may keep his collection.Judge Thomas Manahan, sitting in Morristown, ruled that Steven Hopler may keep the six handguns he still has in his home, but he must store them in a safe pending an evaluation of his alcohol use.
I thought New Jersey had sensible gun laws. This guy not only suffers from blindness, which they've already ruled is NOT a disqualifier, but he has other problems.
Here's one.
The report said Hopler had “a strong odor of alcohol and was extremely intoxicated” when he was acting unruly and was ejected from the bar. Hopler pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly person in that incident.
Here's another.
Manahan also denied a motion by Hopler’s attorney to get back the eight weapons that Rockaway Township police seized from his home on Jan. 31, 2009.
Police found the guns while investigating a burglary that occurred at Hopler’s home while he was in the hospital after the accidental shooting. Hopler’s tenant in the two-family home broke into his apartment with some accomplices and stole 12 handguns and two shotguns, officials have said.
Police kept the guns “for safekeeping following him shooting himself. Now, they are being held because we are seeking their forfeiture,” said Jeffrey Paul, a spokesman for Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi.
In order to be any more disqualified, this guy would have to shoot a cop.
What' your opinion? Even if you don't subscribe to my one-strike-you're-out rule, doesn't this guy present some problems?
Please leave a comment.
So he got drunk once? That is his disqualifier?
ReplyDeleteYeah, drunk once, that's a good one.
ReplyDeleteI was a tenant of Mr. Hopler's, . . . and I have ONE simple question for you, . . . if you were living in the house of a blind ALCOHOLIC who screamed and cursed every night because he was drunk, . . . and one day you wake up to your house surrounded by cops because that same blind alcoholic shot himself in the leg in the middle of the night, . . . would you still feel that "he got drunk once"?
ReplyDeleteFWM says the blind guy got drunk once, not because he really thinks that, but because he thinks that's the best way to protect his god-given, natural human rights to own a gun.
ReplyDeleteUSA.. is safe cuz, we have GUNS in the USA.. you dumb ass people crying about the gun make me sick.. If there is NO GUNS here.. people will come to this land and TAKE IT AWAY FROM US.. there is about 500.000.000 people in the USA, you are crying over 20 things in the last 10 years,, You people are a JOKE.......
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