This is absolutely wrong. Until they adopt my one-strike-you're-out law, they shouldn't be able to get away with this.A man whose gun was held as evidence in a case that is now closed wants his gun back — but the Longview City Attorney says he'll have to go to court to get it.
"What he's forcing me to do is take my chances or pay an attorney more than the gun is worth to get it back," said Kirk Turya, 43, of Longview, who feels his constitutional right to due process is being violated.
"I'm a hardworking, law-abiding citizen," said Turya, a long-haul trucker and a former Kelso reserve police officer. "If I had a criminal history, I could understand, but my record is spot clean."
Longview police originally took the 9mm Glock in October after Turya's brother Eric accidentally dropped it and it discharged in an apartment located in the 1700 block of Hemlock Street.
The bullet went through a table and floor and into the apartment below, where it ricocheted off a wall and the floor. Either the spent bullet or a piece of debris struck the leg of a little girl in the lower apartment, frightening her. Police said they saw no injury.
"The horror of that story is not lost on me," Kirk Turya said.
Eric Turya, 47, of Longview denied guilt, but on March 21 he acknowledged he could be found guilty of unlawfully discharging a firearm within the city limits. If he pays $568 in fines and court costs and commits no other crimes by May 21, the charge will be dismissed from his record.
District Court Judge Ed Putka did not order the firearm forfeited.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
When the case is over and no one is convicted, isn't it standard procedure to return property to the owners? You always want a firearms exemption to other forms of property.
ReplyDeleteYes, as I said, this is absolutely wrong. Until they adopt my one-strike-you're-out law.
DeleteBut the owner of the gun wasn't convicted of anything. Is there a law requiring the securing of firearms from adult members of the family? The brother may deserve some consequences, but the gun's owner ought to get his property back.
DeleteOk Mikeb lets enact your law with a few minor amendments. Since cars cause more deaths in America than guns do lets extend your logic to include them. Anyone who causes an car accident loses not only their right to drive but also their car for life. Forfeited to the public with no compensation. Hey if it's good enough for guns it is good enough for cars. Also anyone charged with reckless driving or inattentive driving loses their license and car too. Remember it's for the safety of the public. Use a cell phone while driving and lose your car. Run a stop sign or stop light and you are done for life. You've proven, according to Mikeb logic, that you can't be trusted. Oh and you also, according to Mikeb, surrender your 4th amendment rights when this happens so big brother can inspect your home anytime for evidence of a car. Can't be to careful now can we.
ReplyDeleteStill going to claim you aren't shredding the Bill of Rights Mike? 2nd amendment gone and 4th violated according to your post and that is ok with you?
Your problem is you want to punish everyone in America for the mistakes of a few. Because someone somewhere in this country might someday break the law we should all lose our right to self defense.
No more car comparisons, please.
Delete"Your problem is you want to punish everyone in America for the mistakes of a few."
How do you get that, man? I want to "punish" only those who fuck-up, even those who fuck-up for the first time. That's not punishing everybody.
The things that you propose here would be a punishment to good citizens and wouldn't affect criminals.
DeleteI'm afraid you're view is affected by your understandable bias. I would call in minor inconveniences for the law abiding and major diminishment in the gun flow to criminals.
DeleteNo more car comparisons because it shows how silly your proposals are. Cars kill more people by far than guns do in this country. But it isn't about saving lives, it's all about gun control.
DeleteYou claim you aren't trying to strip people of their rights but that is exactly what you proposed. Lose their right to own a firearm and lose their right to protection from unlawful search. Your words Mike from the link you posted in the article to a prior article you had written.
I am already inconvenienced by the laws the anti-gun crowd has managed to get passed. Laws that criminals don't follow but law abiding citizens do. Laws that do NOTHING to reduce crime but make people like you feel better. That is what you refuse to see Mike. Gun control does nothing to reduce crime. Pass 100 more laws and you will have reduced crime by ZERO.
No more car comparisons because they don't work.
DeleteThe average gun owner leaves his gun in the closet of somewhere else and rarely touches it. The average car owner uses his car every day.
But those of us who carry about as often as we drive may continue making such comparisons? Mikeb, what you call minor inconveniences would actually make gun ownership exceedingly difficult. It would be much more expensive. It would require a lot of permission from several different authorities. It would require a great deal of paperwork. But you simply don't care. You don't want private citizens to own guns, so imposing burdens on those who do want to own them isn't a problem for you.
DeleteI keep trying to get you to understand our position, and I'll try again. Imagine if all of your proposals were imposed on voting. Just do this exercise for a moment. Licensing, photographic ID, mental health tests, proficiency tests, fees, and so forth, just to vote. The rage and dismay that you're likely feeling over such an idea is how we feel about your gun control proposals.
And before you go on about how guns kill, but voting doesn't, imagine what would have happened if five hundred or so approved voters in Florida had voted differently in 2000. The last decade would have been something else entirely. The 9/11 attack would have happened, and we'd have sent a huge force to Afghanistan, but we wouldn't have gone into Iraq. We likely wouldn't be so deep in debt from government spending on the credit card. We could have had healthcare reform a while ago. We could have a rational environmental policy. If you don't think that voting has consequences, including causing the deaths of many, you're not paying attention.
Greg, you could compare those of you who carry to the average car owner. You see the problem?
DeleteThe comparison is a rhetorical device, something that you would never use, of course. I do see that you left my main points unanswered.
DeleteWhat main point? How many times do I have to say this was wrong?
Delete"But those of us who carry about as often as we drive may continue making such comparisons?"
DeleteNo, not if you want to be honest. Those of you who carry are not the average gun owner. The comparison was between the AVERAGE gun owner and the AVERAGE driver.
Mikeb, the comparison between owning guns and voting and the actual measure of difficulty that your proposals would put on gun owners.
DeleteLet's be clear on one thing. Glocks cannot fire simply from being dropped. They only fire when the trigger is pulled all the way to the rear, disabling the three safeties in the course of its travel and allowing the striker to jump forward and ignite the primer.
ReplyDeleteIf they guy's not currently incarcerated he should get his gun back immediately.
'I' was asked to handle the gun at my brothers request, due to the fact that he wanted to sell the gun but would be out of town at the time, so he asked me to process the transaction on his behalf. My brother (Kirk Turya) told me that the gun was 'unloaded', but not only was it loaded there was a 'round in the chamber' making the gun ready to fire! When I picked up the gun, it seemed heavy for an unloaded gun and I was in the process of finding the clip release to make the gun safe, when the gun slid down my hand, my finger slipped past the trigger guard and caught the trigger, causing the gun to fire. I did NOT drop the gun and try to catch it in midair, the gun never left my hand. I would also like to mention that the gun had the factory trigger pull setting of 5lbs. adjusted to a 3lb. pull (which the NRA states is unsafe).
ReplyDeleteHad the gun NOT had a round in the chamber, I could have hit the trigger by mistake (which is what happened), I could have pulled the trigger on purpose, I could have thrown the gun across the room and the gun would NOT have fired, the ONLY reason the gun fired was because Kirk had left a round in the chamber!
I would also like to point out the fact that Kirk transported the gun to my home in that condition. What if he would have gotten into an accident and the gun would have fired? Could have hit someone in his car, the other car, a pedestrian, could have ruptured his gas tank causing an explosion and correct me if I'm wrong, but not only is that unsafe, but I also think it is illegal.
Kirk states in a story by the Daily News on 04/06/12, that he was a “Kelso Reserve Police Officer”. If so, then why did he store a gun loaded and ready to fire? Why did he not check the gun and make it safe before asking me to handle it? Why did he transport a gun loaded and ready to fire?
Kirk also states that “the horror of the story” (what happened to the little girl that lives below me) is not lost on him. Really? Then why to this day, has he never apologized to me for asking me to handle an unsafe gun that he told me was unloaded? Why has he not apologized or at least explained the situation (either in person or by mail) to my neighbors downstairs?
The only reason he wants the gun back is because as soon as he gets it, he's going to sell it to the buyer as he had originally planned. ANYONE who asks someone else to handle their gun and tells that the gun is safe, when it is ready to fire, should NOT be a gun owner! ANYONE who transports a loaded gun ready to fire, should NOT be a gun owner!
Posted by: Eric Turya
Is this seriously written by Eric Turya? There's so much wrong in what is written here that I don't have time to go into every point, but if it's genuine, Eric Turya is an example of one person who should never touch a firearm again. I'll go into more detail later.
Delete1. How often have you handled guns? Yes, loaded, it weighs more, but it's interesting that you can tell the difference right away.
Delete2. Having realized that it was loaded, though, you didn't treat it as such.
3. What's a clip release? I take it that you mean the magazine release.
4. The gun slid down your hand? How so?
5. See the Mythbusters for more information, but shooting a gas tank won't make it explode.
6. Anyone who transports a loaded gun ready to fire should not be a gun owner? I take it that you're unaware of concealed carry laws? How about laws in some states that allow open carry in vehicles without a license? What's the point of carrying a gun if it's not ready to fire?
I'm with you Greg. Just because a gun is loaded and has one in the chamber does not make it unsafe. That's what we have the 4 Rules for.
DeleteEric,
ReplyDeleteYou failed at gun safety and didn't learn a thing from it.