Friday, April 27, 2012

For the second time man "accidentally" shoots bullet into neighbor's apartment. Police say there's nothing they can do.

Michael Cornell, of Jacksonville, Florida was at home Wednesday night when a bullet came flying through the wall of his home from the apartment next door. Cornell said the bullet landed on the staircase in his home just minutes after his 8-year-old daughter had been playing on the stairs. According to Cornell, this is the second time in the past few years his neighbor has unintentionally fired a bullet into his home while cleaning his gun.
Both times Cornell called the police, and both times the police said there was nothing they could do. According to the police, "the law favors the gun owner and not those affected. As no one was injured, the law does not allow enforcement to apprehend or cite the offender."
A reporter tried to interview the neighbor, but he declined to answer the door. The reporter did note that the truck in front of the neighbor's townhouse has a bumper sticker that reads "Gun Control means never having to say I missed you."
Cornell has written to the mayor of Jacksonville in an attempt to find some relief from the situation. The letter reads, in part:
I am awake at this hour as my daughter cannot sleep. My wife is not consolable given this event. By law, I have no avenue of recourse to prevent this person from repeating this event, unless I or my family are injured, or worse. To state this is unacceptable is an understatement of epic proportions.

2 comments:

Baldr Odinson said...

Wow. Clearly, the rights of a gun owner to make stupid and potentially deadly mistakes are greater than the rights of the average citizen to live free from gun violence and the risk of death. This is our second amendment in action.

Anonymous said...

Oddly, a few days ago you posted this story:

http://ohhshoot.blogspot.com/2012/04/two-separate-incidents-in-kentucky.html

where the men in the two cases were charged with reckless endangerment. I wonder if the police in this story are just lazy, or if the local ordinances are just very different.