"Man Charged With Threatening Westfarms Clerks With Gun"

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I just saw this in the Hartford Currant ... What's your take on this?

Man Charged With Threatening Westfarms Clerks With Gun

The Hartford Courant

April 14, 2010

FARMINGTON
A Simsbury man was charged with second-degree breach of peace and second-degree threatening after police say he showed a handgun he was carrying to two clerks at Westfarms mall.

Police said Jay Ginewsky, 67, was properly licensed to carry the five-shot, .38-caliber pistol he had tucked in his belt. But when he lifted his shirt and showed it to two clerks at the mall about 4 p.m., one clerk was so alarmed that she called 911.

Police said Ginewsky was upset with Nordstrom, a store at the mall, and said something about it to a clerk at a kiosk in the mall's center court, then showed the gun. He also showed the gun to a clerk at the Nike store, police said.

When police arrived they quickly disarmed Ginewsky and took him into custody. He was later released without having to post bail. Police kept the handgun and Ginewsky's permit, and referred him to the state Board of Firearms Permit Examiners.

—David Owens

LINK: http://www.courant.com/community/farmington/hc-westfarms-gun-0413,0,6162976.story

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If the facts in the story are to be believed, he deserved to lose his permit and firearm and deserves any charges that follow.

What a stupid thing to do. That makes us all look bad.

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I was feeling the same way. I just thought I was alone on the fact that this seems to be the mentality of the people we carry to protect from.

I was just shocked to read that he was a permit holder. I thought we all are level headed. But I guess there is always the exception.

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cbnlnk121 wrote:

I was just shocked to read that he was a permit holder. I thought we all are level headed.

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As much as we would like to believe that, it would be a ridiculous assertion. The only thing we can do is try and make sure that the good outweighs the bad at all times.

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I will not comment on the actions of the gentleman but rather the actions of the police. They had no authority to seize his permit unless it was invalid. They could have sent a request to Commissioner Danaher to have the permit revoked. The Commissioner upon his investigation is the only one with the authority to revoke a permit. Why would the local police refer the guy to the BFPE? Until he receives a revocation letter from Commissioner Danaher he still has a valid permit and can still carry. Of course now that he doesn't have a permit he can be ticketed for $35 for failure to carry his permit on his person.

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I agree competely with Jumpmaster.

If anyone brandishes their weapon in a treatening manner, they should be arrested for Breach of Peace.

Having said that, Breach of Peace is not by itself a disqualifying factor for a permit to be revoked, and local or state police are required to submit the facts to DPS/SLFU with any request for revocation of same.

I believe the police were correct in taking the weapon during an arrest, and the courts can deal with it's return or destruction depending on the outcome of the criminal charge(s).

I think it's stupid to draw attention to your weapon when having a dispute with a sales clerk.

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I take any firearms-related newsin the Hartford Courant with a grain of salt; they've proven over the years not to beunbiased when it comes our right to keep and bear arms.

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Rich B wrote:

SNIP What a stupid thing to do. That makes us all look bad.

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That is a littlelike saying someone who takes offhis shoes and stinks up the room with smellyfeetmakes all shoe-wearers look bad.

Do pot-bellied men with sleevelessshirts make everyone else whowears a shirt look bad?

Would I be wiseto expect anothergent to behave a certain way justhe and I both wear trousers?

As long as we assign some special "us-ness" to gun misbehavers, the anti-gunners will be happy to oblige us.

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Citizen wrote:

Rich B wrote:

SNIP What a stupid thing to do. That makes us all look bad.

Click to expand...

That is a littlelike saying someone who takes offhis shoes and stinks up the room with smellyfeetmakes all shoe-wearers look bad.

Do pot-bellied men with sleevelessshirts make everyone else whowears a shirt look bad?

Would I be wiseto expect anothergent to behave a certain way justhe and I both wear trousers?

As long as we assign some special "us-ness" to gun misbehavers, the anti-gunners will be happy to oblige us.

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Couldn't have said it better myself. Good Job!

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The context of how the clerks saw the gun is not clear from the article. If when he tucked in his belt, did he say to the clerks, "don't be alarmed, I am lawfully carrying a fire-arm. I need to adjust my belt and you may possibly see my fire-arm."?

Don't be so quick to make judgments. In fact, since he was released without bail, it might indicate that something like the outlined possibility above is what happened. In which case, he was very responsible for doing it that way, while the clerks freaked.

Be careful about making judgments without context.

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Citizen wrote:

As long as we assign some special "us-ness" to gun misbehavers, the anti-gunners will be happy to oblige us.  

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That sounds great in a utopian dream, but unfortunately here in reality it is the case. We are all judged based on the actions of one another and we all have a responsibility to one another to promote the good in the cause and condemn the bad.

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Citizen wrote:

Rich B wrote:

SNIP What a stupid thing to do. That makes us all look bad.

Click to expand...

That is a littlelike saying someone who takes offhis shoes and stinks up the room with smellyfeetmakes all shoe-wearers look bad.

Do pot-bellied men with sleevelessshirts make everyone else whowears a shirt look bad?

Would I be wiseto expect anothergent to behave a certain way justhe and I both wear trousers?

As long as we assign some special "us-ness" to gun misbehavers, the anti-gunners will be happy to oblige us.

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with all due respect citizen, in this state your vue is wrong. i agree with you in a different state like arizona, but not ct. just think of the traditional gang banger holding his gun sideways, blastin caps in yo ### and killin someone. that guy no matter the gang, race, enemy, or target will be the "representitive" of all gun owners. the news will blast his face, then a picture of a gun, then say gun 400 times in the 15 second news clip. making sure only the word gun is remembered being involved with a shooting. the sheep here suck it up like a baby on the tit. the sheep cant mentally distiguish a bad guy from a good guy with a gun.

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Rich B wrote:

Citizen wrote:

As long as we assign some special "us-ness" to gun misbehavers, the anti-gunners will be happy to oblige us.

Click to expand...

That sounds great in a utopian dream, but unfortunately here in reality it is the case. We are all judged based on the actions of one another and we all have a responsibility to one another to promote the good in the cause and condemn the bad.

Click to expand...

When we say "we are all judged" we make it look more comprehensive than it really is. We overlook the other part of the equation--the most important part: who is doing the judging?

Not everyone who reads a news article or sees a TV news segment judges all CCW permit holders on the basis on misbehaver. I would hazard a guess and say that most people would not judge negatively all CCers because one was an idiot. Any individual person will have an emotional reaction to this or that occurence thatcauses an automatic identification of two things that are not identical; but feew have somany emotional reactions that automatically identify almost everything with everything else. Those who do are in institutions for the most part. This is all just a fancy way of saying plenty of people can and do differentiate, or more precisely they do not automatically draw an identificationor similarity where none exists.

There are people who would judge all gun owners dangerous because of the misdeeds of a few. I think they are few in number. Otherwise, the Brady Bunch would get a lot more traction than they do.

In any event, I would not worry about it, which was the unstated thrust of my first post. Our concern should be educating and activating those are not so nutty as to draw identifications or similarities where none exist. Plenty more of those people around.