Sangamon
County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
| |
Sangamon
County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights Springfield, Illinois |
|
 "Celebratory" Gun Fire on New
Year's Eve
- a Really Dumb Idea Tom Shafer speaking at 1/07/08
SCRA meeting
February 2008
GunNews
Midnight New Years Eve, the east side of Springfield. I don't
know where you were born or raised or what the status was of how you
celebrated it. It's called a lovely term, "celebratory gun
fire"
which means that you drag out your cannon and you shoot it off up in
the air in a joyous good luck celebration of the coming new year.The lead of our story tonight had such a plan. He had his cannon with him. It was a 9 mm. He was on the east side of Springfield, 16th and South Grand, a well known area, the heart of the hood, the mitral valve of the heart of the hood. It's the aorta of the heart of the hood. It's not a place where you would want to bring the wife and kids after dark. Our protagonist here tonight had a plan. He was happy that it was new year. His girlfriend testified later while he was hospitalized and incapacitated that, "He does this every year. This is not no new deal for him. This is his way of bringing in the new year. It's for good luck. He went around the house because there were seven children living in the house to make sure there was no one around the house who could be in danger." But what about the person three and a half miles away where this gun fire comes down. Did he check their house? So my kid is outside with his "Ehhh, Ehhh" horn. What if he catches one in the ear from your "celebratory gun fire?" There is always the unexpected in life and this has clearly happened in this case. Our guy went out at midnight, drug his cannon out into his fenced in backyard at 16th and South Grand for his "good luck, celebratory gun fire". Three city police officers were 150 yards away. They took exception his good luck ritual. "Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!" All of a sudden "Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Oh, not good luck a bit!." He went back into the house and fell into the refrigerator his girlfriend said. "I'm shot, I'm shot!" The police are claiming they ordered him to drop his firearm multiple times. When you get into this kind of "celebratory gun fire" situation, they're not asking you to drop it, they're telling you. What they're saying is drop it. I guess what they left out is "or we'll kill you." When I worked at Number five engine house at 18th and Cass as a rookie, all the guys who were seniors got off for New Years. They said, "Stay in." I said, "What the hell for?" "You'll see, you'll see" is what they told me. At midnight it sounded like "pop, pop, pop". Then it rose in crescendo to "boom, boom, boom", then all of a sudden "gabooom, gabooom, gaboom, and I said "@#$%$#, What the hell is that???" Not only did I stay in when the bird shot dropped on the roof of the engine house but I got down below the level of the window because it sounded so close and so often with rolling, sustained gunfire for twenty minutes. I said, "Usually they run out of ammo at some point!' Originally I thought it might be fireworks until I heard "Clank!!!" when a bullet hit the brick wall of the engine house. I thought, "that's not fireworks, that's incoming brother!. This also happened on the Fourth of July because they would come out on the fifth of July and find spent rounds on their sidewalks, that's obviously not fireworks. The girlfriend is claiming no warning, they just opened up on the poor baby. They got him four shots fired, four hits. I guess that says something about the marksmanship training of our officers as going way up from whatever it was, four hits, four shots no hits. He's got four rounds in him and I haven't been able to speak to the guy but I'm going to make the attempt. They're claiming that he is going to be immediately taken into custody for reckless discharge, aggravated assault which is just pointing a gun at anybody whether it goes off or not and reckless endangerment of the neighborhood which is the rounds going for three miles, coming down and catching somebody in the ear who comes out from their tavern. His girlfriend claims he was stone sober but his criminal record contains multiple DUI's and alcohol related misdemeanors so at some point he was a drinking man. I'm going to touch base with the police command staff and ask them if this is the beginning of a legitimate effort by law enforcement to bring a halt to this east side "celebratory gunfire". They'll either say yes or no. It should send a message to the community that this is outrageous behavior and it endangers everyone. I'm a gun owner and we suffer under laws that are passed usually as a result of outrageous incidents like this one. This tarnishes all gun owners even though it should only tarnish him and the other people who shoot their pistols off up into the air for whatever reason. When I called talk radio they asked, "Well, how many times have you done that?" I said, "Never, ever, it's outrageous, illegal and it ought to be because it endangers everyone, including your wife and kids!" His girlfriend said she had taken great pains to make sure his kids were safe. But do you think that if your kid caught one in the ear on the down range that they would have come forward and said, "Hey that was me, that was my fault, here's some money, what do I owe you for your medical bills?" I don't believe they would have come forward and paid any of your medical bills or taken responsibility so it is outrageous behavior and it has to be discouraged. I tell this story in a hilarious way but this is what goes on. This is what you have to deal with. This is the level of police interaction with the public that we have here in Springfield. We've had death in custody stuff, brutality allegations and racial hiring allegations. I just went to federal court today to follow a racial discrimination case on the Springfield police department and sometimes I've been critical of the police department. But this particular incident is not one of them. For the turn of a coin we could all have been commiserating the death of a law enforcement officer. The law enforcement line says, "I just want to go home tonight." When these guys are out there and they have to go into that dark backyard at 16th and South Grand at midnight and they're already hearing a round incoming as going off, it's not funny any more. These guys have wives, these guys have families. They don't know what these gomers are doing back there. Maybe it's just "celebratory gun fire". "Just tell Jesse to go back in and sleep it off and quit shooting that pistol up in the air." Otherwise it's a dope deal gone bad and they're going to kill every witness and as soon as you round the corner you're a dead police officer. So I criticize no one here except the guy that did it. That sums it up From the Capitol Index Return to SCRA Home Page |