No idea the person’s true involvement in any crimes, but in my case I was interviewed by the police upon arrival, however not arrested or had exit bans (nor was I escorted to the prosecutor’s, I think it was basically 函送 where they sent the information to prosecutors by mail). I think in most criminal cases when it’s 函送 it means they have no desire to prosecute and is simply fulfilling a formality… I received a notice of no indictment from the prosecutor’s office about a year later. The notice basically says that Taiwan has no right to prosecute overseas violation of the law. There was an appeal (no idea from whom) to this decision but that appeal was denied on the ground that the prosecutor did not act outside of the law.
But then my case was completely different as there was no threat made to anyone, and I was not cuffed on the plane ride back to Taiwan at all. So the person may have had a more aggravated circumstance which made prosecutors really want to hammer him. My case was rather simple, simply use of firearms for sporting/hobby use.
Any idea the outcome of this guy’s case? I googled the guy’s name and it looks like his exit ban was extended further.
It is illegal for a foreign national without permanent residency to take possession of a firearm, except for hunting. They can purchase and have it shipped abroad to their home country, with the proper export paperwork. They can rent one for use at a tourist rental range. They can buy one for the purpose of hunting.
He was also under 21. He could not legally purchase a handgun from a gun dealer.
There have been several cases of college students on student visas being arrested for attempting to purchase firearms. No green card, no hunting license, no gun. He was in violation of the law. There was no special “oh shit we gotta make up something to charge him with” in his situation.
None of which changes the fact that the sole reason he was investigated in the first place was because he made a threat to a classmate that he was going to shoot up the school, and she felt that it was not a joke.
American gun laws are a freaking mess and everyone know it. First question the police asked me is how can I be charged with possession of firearms when firearms are legal in the US.
They need to stop the nonsense and do it like every other country, which is firearms are illegal unless you have a license. Same as buying a crossbow in Taiwan. You have to get it registered and get licensed to use it. They’ll want to know the purpose for having them and there would be annual inspections. This would have solved a lot of problems with people being arrested for attempting to buy firearms because they were of the wrong status or whatever. Furthermore people getting arrested because they went to a range, borrowed guns, and took a few boxes of ammo home. It’s American law that is the problem. Make up their mind, if the second amendment is not good for society then do away with it and rewrite it.
Otherwise all these laws saying so and so can’t possess guns or ammunition because of their past or whatever status, on American soil, is unconstitutional and needs to be struck down and modified.
American prosecutors don’t need to be “oh shit let’s make something up to charge him with”. There are so many laws that covers so many situations, they could charge the pope with a crime if they wanted to. Lots of these laws are overlapping and contradicting. For example, ATF seized your gun for whatever reason (someone called them, whatever). You are an upstanding US Citizen, no criminal records except for a few traffic tickets. ATF would then scrutinize your gun and see if there is any feature on the gun that could violate any of the 40,000 Federal firearm laws on the books. Barrel 15.998" long? Imported firearm that does not have the right number of US made parts? Serial number misstamped by manufacturer? Well that’s a modified serial number, and it’s a crime. Serial number not modified? Well we got some meal stamp and a dremel in the evidence room… we can cook some books.
People have gone to jail because a firearm malfunctioned and emptied its entire magazine. ATF calls it an illegal machine gun. They have gone as far as modifying the firearm themselves to make sure a charge will stick. They are bandits, pure and simple.
At least Taiwanese police/prosecutors are smart enough to know that.
Second Amendment. Constitution trumps feels. Yes, the laws are a mess. Blame the Democrats for trying to cram gun control down everyone’s throats every single time some scumbag uses a gun to commit a crime. 16" barrel length? National Firearms Act of 1934, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Giant mess around federal gun dealer licensing and handgun sales to under-21’s? Gun Control Act of 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson.
I wasn’t aware you were also charged with firearms violations, but if that was the case, then it was because you were an illegal alien and the U.S. courts have ruled that illegal aliens have no right to own firearms.
The Supreme Court can make the constitution mean anything they want, and sometimes those rulings are contradictory anyways. Also supreme court ruling in the US is highly political, even though the institution is not supposed to be political in any way.
What I was charged with, and what many foreign students were convicted of, is basically bullshit, and is not even possible under the legal framework of most countries. In most countries, you buy firearms either from a legit shop, which means getting a license before they could sell you the gun, or you buy from the black market. Firearm possession in any other country is not legal unless licensed, and you certainly couldn’t just go buy them from Walmart.
That’s pretty messed up on your parents’ part. They should have at least let you know you didn’t have legal status so you could make sure to stay on the right side of the law.
What’s messed up is the entire jurisprudence in the US.
If American society needs firearms controlled to prevent misuse, they need to scrap the second amendment and have something more sensible. I mean a tourist could go to a shooting range to rent guns, but if they took unused ammo home with them for whatever reason, that’s unlawful. Current law, and whatever the court agree with, is unfair and racist (it was intended to be racist in fact).
No, not really. Parents neglecting to tell their grown kids that they are illegal and one day will have to deal with that mess doesn’t just “happen.”
From what you’ve let out of the bag, you should feel very lucky that they let you leave. You tend to revise your narrative every time this bug gets up into you. Some of us remember like elephants. Let it go.
In all fairness, it’s hardly TL’s fault. And TL is absolutely right about the messed up state of the laws in the U.S., and about the politicized rulings of the Supreme Court. They pretend to be all “we just rule according to the Constitution!” but all their so-called “landmark” cases are complete garbage based on the political narratives of the time and their feelings about them.
Look at the unreachable “actual malice” standard for defamation, which was created out of thin air in NYT v. Sullivan. Or “qualified immunity” for police, likewise. Or, no matter how you feel about it, Roe v. Wade – no intellectually honest person, whether feminazi or religious wacko, can read about the “emanations and penumbras” without wanting to vomit. Or Dred Scott, or The Slaughterhouse Cases, or Plessy v. Ferguson, or Wickard v. Filburn, or even that Father of Lies itself, Marbury v. Madison.
I know Americans might not like to hear this, but it looks like even conservative gun nuts agree that not all people SHOULD have guns. If that is what they think, then why even have a second amendment?? Sure you might talk about blah blah can’t change the constitution or how hard it is, but I find it incredibly intellectually dishonest for the NRA to blab about not infringing rights but they support laws that clearly infringe on that right. Not to mention the Federal government has an entire agency whose job is to infringe on second amendment rights. So if you really feel that not all people SHOULD have a gun, then the second amendment is outdated and needs to go. Then a permit/license system can be established that will examine people’s need to have firearms, such as hunting, self defense, or just shooting tin cans or paper target or tannerite at a safe location. But also I believe while a background check is appropriate the standard of denial should NOT be the list of prohibited person in 18 USC 922(g). It should instead allow people who have no violent criminal history or habitual offense, gang associations, or other marker of poor character (means not some felony marijuana possession charge) that would disqualify you from being able to get the license. Then demonstration of safe storage, training, marksmanship, gun safety, etc. should be expected. With added emphasis that Call of Duty is NOT a substitute for gun safety training. With the number of actors with their fingers on the trigger there ought to be negligent discharge all the time.
Then with that they can dispense with stupid regulations like assault weapon bans, silencer regulations, short barreled rifle or shotguns. European countries don’t have silly regulations like this, and in fact silencers are often required and treated like firearm accessories (which any licensed firearm owner can buy without difficulty). This is because when you shoot, guns are LOUD and silencers make them less loud so people don’t complain about noise.
There, a solution that both Liberals and Conservatives can agree on. Keep guns out of dangerous people but still allow them to be used for hobby, hunting, or defensive purpose.
No, the NRA definitely thinks everyone on earth should have guns, no exceptions for children who people in a bad mental place. A government official in New Zealand tried to claim second amendment rights infringement when they were creating legislation after Christchurch because the NRA lobbied him. In New Zealand, where there is no second amendment right to arms. The entirety of central and South America is overrun with guns that the NRA helped to put there. The legislation you’re proposing is not that simple
Fast and Furious was an operation so cloak-and-dagger Mexican authorities weren’t even notified that thousands of semi-automatic firearms were being sold to people in Arizona thought to have links to Mexican drug cartels. According to ATF whistleblowers, in 2009 the U.S. government began instructing gun storeowners to break the law by selling firearms to suspected criminals. ATF agents then, again according to testimony by ATF agents turned whistleblowers, were ordered not to intercept the smugglers but rather to let the guns “walk” across the U.S.-Mexican border and into the hands of Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.
Sometime around September 2009, ATF agents began pressuring gun storeowners in Arizona to sell firearms to people the ATF thought would sell the guns to Mexican cartels and gangs. As gun-storeowners can’t do business without federal licenses, and because the ATF has the authority to shut down a gun store if the establishment’s paperwork isn’t in order, these requests were likely taken as orders. This put the gun storeowners in a catch-22: the law requires them to report suspicious activity and not to sell to people they think are breaking the law, yet the ATF was telling them to sell to suspicious people who wanted to buy AK-47s by the dozen.
I’m not sure why you care so much considering you are not affected in the slightest. Perhaps you should focus more on local issues like toxic waste dumping or migrant worker rights?
BTW, in case you hadn’t noticed, the NRA is getting the crap beat out of it not just by the NYAG but also by its own membership, which has been fed up with Wayne LaPierre pushing “reasonable gun control” while spending all of their donations on Hong Kong tailors.
