Wednesday, October 18, 2006
 
Drink a Beer, Own a Gun, Go to Jail?
New charges filed in father's shooting of 6-year-old:
    New criminal charges have been filed against the father of a 6-year-old eastern Missouri boy who was shot in the head inside his rural Cadet home a week ago, the Washington County prosecutor said Wednesday. Prosecutor John Rupp said he charged Ricky Lee Rulo Jr., 29, late Tuesday with one count each of endangering the welfare of a child and possessing a firearm while intoxicated.
Wow, is that true? Apparently so:
    571.030. 1. A person commits the crime of unlawful use of weapons if he or she knowingly:

    (1) Carries concealed upon or about his or her person a knife, a firearm, a blackjack or any other weapon readily capable of lethal use; or

    (2) Sets a spring gun; or

    (3) Discharges or shoots a firearm into a dwelling house, a railroad train, boat, aircraft, or motor vehicle as defined in section 302.010, RSMo, or any building or structure used for the assembling of people; or

    (4) Exhibits, in the presence of one or more persons, any weapon readily capable of lethal use in an angry or threatening manner; or

    (5) Possesses or discharges a firearm or projectile weapon while intoxicated;
Perhaps somewhere else in the byzantine labyrinths (if they had labyrinths in Byzantium, I guess), it explains that possession means you've got it on your person, but we're only taking it on faith that it's elsewhere and that your prosecutor's not going to try to expand the law by throwing you in the pokey if you've got your old man's 45-70 on the wall and blow a .8 at your backyard barbecue.


 
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."