53-year-old Mark Bornino and 45-year-old Daniel Volpone of Montville Twp, Ohio were target shooting with an AK-47 in Bornino's backyard. They were shooting at paper targets without any backstop to stop the bullets.
Mary Kuruc, who lives about a third of a mile away, called the police to report the gunfire and was waiting for them to arrive when a bullet came through the wall and shot into her microwave.
Police confronted the shooters as they were being another volley. "Both men were ordered to the ground and taken into custody," said a police spokesperson.
Bornino and Volpone had been drinking alcohol and police also found some marijuana. They were arrested and charged with discharging a firearm in a public place.
Police seized an AK-47, two high-capacity magazines, three handguns and over 700 rounds of ammunition.
AK-47? A legal, semiautomatic rifle. Actually fun to shoot. High capacity magazines? Nowadays, that's subjective. Just ask New York, where an 8rd magazine is now "high cap" and illegal. The news footage did show what looked like a standard cap magazine for the AK, which holds 30rds. For target shooting, where you're repeatedly firing as you work on your form, breathing, squeezing the trigger, a higher capacity magazine is nice because you're not interrupted every few rounds to stop & reload. Three handguns? That's a normal day at the range. 700 rounds for 4 firearms? Again, not a crazy amount to burn through during a safe practice session. I may go through 100-200 rounds with one handgun alone over a couple hours.
ReplyDeleteAll that being said, these guys were absolute morons, should be thanking their lucky stars no one was hit by this negligent fire, and I hope they get smacked with whatever our justice system can throw at them. Drugs & alcohol on top of that? Ugh! Maybe throw some civil suits in there for good measure.
[facepalm]
We have mandatory traffic school for some offenders, even suspend their license. I'd be totally in favor for new laws that addressed crap like this.
More "law abiding gun owners" run amok. The NRA thinks it's great that they are able to shoot up the neighborhood with weapons that fire at least 45 rounds a minute, don't need reloaded but every 30 rounds, and as much ammo as they can carry.
ReplyDeleteHeck, here in Oregon, the fact that they're drunk, while shooting, isn't even illegal.
Gotta love the NRA's America. Thank goodness we have that "freedom." Nevermind freedom from fear or the general welfare of the people.
Whether they had "high capacity" magazines or not is irrelevant, as is the question of its theoretical maximum rate of fire.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that they were shooting without a proper backstop, which made what they were doing incredibly dangerous whether it was a scary-looking AK-47 or grandpa's bolt-action deer rifle.