define "intent"

[mejjep]

We have a rousing debate going on in the office this morning, over a story in the paper today. Basically, a man with an HCP was caught committing a crime, with his gun on his person. He never drew the gun in committment of the crime, but was still charged with "possession of a deadly weapon with the intent to commit a crime." There are those here who are crying foul about the "intent", since he had a HCP and did not "USE" the gun to commit the crime, and others that say that the fact he had a gun on his person while commiting a crime, whether he drew the weapon or not, and regardless of his HCP, is seen as intent.

[Oakenheart]

hm. Define "Crime". You know, speeding, writing a bad check, these are "crimes", but not quite as significant as, say robbery. Just curious what the guy did.

[johnharris]

The issue should be one which examines the question of whether possession was incidential to the crime or coincidential - that is, as in the bad check example, whether possession had nothing to do with the crime or its commission. Sadly, to many in law enforcement really don't care as they hear "gun" and immediately think the person is just this side of a serial killer and must be taught a lesson and the evil "gun" must be destroyed.

[mejjep]

This was the dude who drove the Kroger truck full of meat to another dudes house for purposes of stealing the meat in question. Dude had a loaded gun on his person, but never pulled it out during the crime, or threatened anyone with it during the crime. But because he had it on his person during the crime, he was charged with with intent to use a deadly weapon

[mejjep]

This was the dude who drove the Kroger truck full of meat to someone else's home and began to offload it. The crime here is high dollar theft.

[Dan Lee]

What a shock, commercial appeal has this story almost exclusively, & it's in their Gun Owner Smear section..

"Nash picked up a load of meat Monday, but Kroger officials followed him, then tipped off police that he wasn't headed for Mississippi."


The gun was an incidental object, & was not used in the great beef caper of 2009..

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... 835535394/

[Dan Lee]

Under the logic of the arresting department in the Memphis case, it's interesting that these officers weren't charged for the same thing. They all possessed legal firearms during the alleged crimes they committed:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... -arrested/

http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=9013035

http://tech.mit.edu/V129/N13/damelio_police_arrest.html

Why did they not have the additional weapons charge?