Things in Chicago and Washington D.C. could be worse I guess. This guy had just a single cartridge (they say bullet exposing their ignorance but from the context it’s a cartridge):
Bandar Seri Begawan – A 27-year-old Indonesian man was sentenced to five years imprisonment and three strokes of whipping by the Bandar Magistrate’s Court yesterday after he pleaded guilty to possession of an unlicensed bullet.
The defendant, Andriyadi was convicted of possessing a three-cm by one-cm bullet without a: licence issued by the licensing officer. It is an offence punishable under rule 17(l) of the Arms and Explosives Rule of the Arms and Explosives Act, Chapter 58.
He got caught when he tried to get on an airplane:
The defendant then took his wallet out and placed it in the X-ray machine.
As the wallet was screened, one of the airport security officers noticed something that looked like a bullet inside the defendant’s wallet.
The defendant was asked to take out the contents of his wallet which he did witnessed by the airport security officers.
Asked by the airport security officers about the bullet, the defendant admitted that the bullet belonged to him. The bullet was sent to the Royal Brunei Armed Forces where upon examination, the bullet was found to be a live bullet which had not been used before.
IMHO the wrong person is getting the whipping and the prison sentence.
Other than the caning, you can indeed get 5 years in jail for a single, unregistered cartridge (or even empty casing), in DC, if I remember correctly. The other day I picked up a few WalMart winchester white box value packs… I had 550 rounds in my little bag, good for 2750 years in a DC jail — That’s why any time I have to go into DC, it’s a full scrub of the inside of my jeep to make sure I don’t have any stray .22 rounds lying around. (It’s 5 years per cartridge, not 5 years for having unregistered ammo)
I had no idea it was that bad. I knew guns were outlawed but I didn’t know ammunition was outlawed as well. And FIVE YEARS PER CARTRIDGE?
Yup. Don’t know where I heard about it the first time, but Countertop (a lawyer here in VA) mentions it in a post about taking a couple of new shooters to the range:
http://countertop-chronicles.blogspot.com/2006/03/new-shooter-alert.html
(Sorry for the long link, the comment form says no HTML allowed)
Yeah, DC is that bad. I do, however, know a legal gun owner in DC. (One of the two, I’d imagine) He shoots in the service rifle matches at the Izaak Walton league. He and I are (up until recently) the only ones who shoot with bolt-action rifles. Me, because of choice (love my mosins) and finances, him because of the blooming registration process. It’s a French MAS-36 (if I remember correctly) which, unfortunately, has a detachable magazine and a bayonet. Both of which made registering it really hard–and this is a bolt-action rifle. Sorry, got a little spun up there.
DC, the place where law defines “machine gun” to be something that can fire semi-automatically more than 12 rounds without reloading.
More interesting DC laws… an Airsoft gun is a “destructive device” —
(B) Any device by whatever name known which will, or is designed or redesigned, or may be readily converted or restored to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant through a smooth bore barrel, except a shotgun;
and it doesn’t fall under the exception:Any pneumatic, spring, or B-B gun which expels a single projectile not exceeding .18 inch in diameter;
However, I can’t find anything that provides a penalty greater than one year for a general firearms (including ammo) violation. (Transferring to a minor is worse, second offense is worse, on your own property with an otherwise register-able gun is the same for subsequent offenses as for the first offense) So, maybe I’d only get 550 years and a half million dollar fine if I had driven through DC with my walMart bag. Maybe Countertop knows what the relevant section is.
Found here:
http://198.187.128.12/dc/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn=fs-main.htm&2.0
(again, sorry for the long link) LexisNexis’ copy of the DC code.