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Dear gunstore lawyers - please shut up!

skidmark

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 15, 2007
Messages
10,444
Location
Valhalla
http://www.gunnuts.net/2013/08/08/dear-gunstore-lawyers-shut-up/

.... Our helpful gunstore legal expert had at some point confused the phrase “21 foot rule” with Virginia law, and had interpreted those words to mean that if you so much as touch a gun while a threat is more than 21 feet away, you’ve committed a violent felony. Instead of checking with a lawyer who had some experience with self defense precedent or perhaps chatting with police UOF experts or looking through Virginia code or Supreme Court decisions for the supposed law…or, hell, even bothering to google it…he began passing off his “You’re a felon if you draw!” interpretation of the 21 foot rule to people who showed up in his store.
I don’t have the words for how much this pisses me off. Well, I do, but an article comprised entirely of swear words and casting aspersions upon that man and the lineage that produced him wouldn’t be productive. Why, you may ask, does it make me so angry? Because it puts people’s lives at risk. ....

The concept is explored in a bit more depth of the absolute reliance one can place on advice from gunstore employees, the guy at the next table at the restaurant, or even someone who is not only an attorney but your attorney, unless they are able to back up what they say with not only citations, but with proof they understand what they are talking about.

There are some things that you might think do not need to be both cited and defined/explained. But this example of misunderstanding the Tueller "Rule" shows that often it is better to check to see if the person telling you some "established fact" actually knows what they are talking about.

stay safe.
 

stealthyeliminator

Regular Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2008
Messages
3,100
Location
Texas
IMO there is almost nothing that isn't worth citing and explaining, even if it's "common sense" or "common knowledge"

But especially something like this. I can't say I don't enjoy chatting with gun store employees, I like collecting opinions, but I try not to settle on one until I know there's something solid behind it. I've actually been guilty of repeating things told me by a police officer that turned out to not be true. Some people on this forum actually helped influence me to stop doing that.
 
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509rifas

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2013
Messages
252
Location
Yakima County
Amen!
I had a guy (while trying to sell me Zombie Max ammo) tell me that carrying handloaded HPs was illegal under federal law, and he had a buddy that went down for it. Upon further inquiry, he said itwas manslaughter, and that he got manslaughter because he used HP handloads in an otherwise clean defensive shooting. And the investigators always pop out the primers because factory and reloads have different colors of primers and that's how they get their man. Then I mentioned I'm a law school drop out, and he kinda trailed off and tried to sell something else...
 
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