Reckless Discharge?

Two friends of mine were doing some recreational shooting this evening. Rural area.

Neighbors called the police, who showed up, were fairly cool about it all, but advised that they could be arrested for reckless discharge of firearms.

Apparently they were shooting from on private property into a local river. Small river, not an open body of water with risk of ricochet, etc. High bank on the other side of the river.

I did a quick read of both 18.2-56.1 and 18.2-280, and I don't see any law that covers this scenario, as long as there is no actual reckless shooting.

So it may not have been the smartest place to shoot, but strictly speaking legally, any idea of any actual law that was broken?

Sounds to me like the deputies were making stuff up.

TFred

What? No, Never!!!

Did they stop shooting? If so, the intimidation worked.

Maybe, maybe not One would have to read the actual wording of the charge as statute if they were charged.

Good back stop no near by houses or people behind it. It could be very hard to charge.

I handle several situations like this in my career. I would talk with the shooters look at the area they were shooting in and it looked and seem safe. I tell them to be careful and the neighbors had a concern so be careful.

I if found nothing was done wrong I tell the neighbor what they were doing was legal.

I never had any body that was actually shooting in a reckless manner.

I found that in 100 percent of the cases I handled that it was a noise problem instead of being reckless and or the neighbors just wanted to back sure they were being safe.

But then I was well inform and very pro 2nd and wouldn't let anti's get away with foolishness.


But not all officers are well informed or very pro 2nd.

Don't see how it would be reckless unless there was somebody on the river.

The reckless dumping of lead into a waterway.

Nightmare said:

Lead is almost insoluble in water (micrograms per liter), despite what the enviroMENTALIST-nazis would have you believe.

Click to expand...

Don't keep your lemonade or orange juice in a lead glazed pitcher though - potentially dire consequences.

Nightmare said:

Lead is almost insoluble in water (micrograms per liter), despite what the enviroMENTALIST-nazis would have you believe.

Click to expand...

Almost = not insoluble...

Here's the ultimate irony... turns out that about three months ago, they were doing the same thing... deputies showed up, looked the situation over, said no problem, you're fine, have a nice day...

Yet another data point for "never take legal advice from the police!"

TFred

Me and some friends were canoeing on the Rappahannock River on a couple different occasions and encountered some idiots shooting into and across the river. On both occasions we had to ask them to stop shooting so we could paddle through. They were acting as if we weren't even there. We had barely finished paddling through during one of those trips when they started shooting again practically shooting over the last paddlers head.

I live in a rural area, and some nights it's like I live next to a gun range.

mobeewan said:

Me and some friends were canoeing on the Rappahannock River on a couple different occasions and encountered some idiots shooting into and across the river. On both occasions we had to ask them to stop shooting so we could paddle through. They were acting as if we weren't even there. We had barely finished paddling through during one of those trips when they started shooting again practically shooting over the last paddlers head.

Click to expand...

Was this a river formerly known as the Cahulawassee River? If they started playing banjos, I'd be even more afraid. Weeeeweeeeeeweeeeeeeee.....

MontanaResident said:

Was this a river formerly known as the Cahulawassee River? If they started playing banjos, I'd be even more afraid. Weeeeweeeeeeweeeeeeeee.....

Click to expand...

[video=vimeo;33798367]http://vimeo.com/33798367[/video]

"Reckless Discharge"

[size=+1]"Reckless Discharge"[/size]

The reckless and wanton discharge of foreign children (and various assorted OTM's) into the United States by Latin American countries.