Posted on 07/16/2005 8:44:25 AM PDT by holymoly
SOUTH BEND -- A federal judge summed up Alfred Del Toro's problems in the first line of the court's recent sentencing memorandum.
"On September 24, 2004, police found (Del Toro) in a house full of sleeping children, loaded firearms and recently cooked crack cocaine," U.S. District Judge Robert L. Miller Jr. wrote.
One of the weapons -- a semi-automatic assault rifle with two banana clips holding 63 rounds taped together for rapid reloading -- was found under the cushion of a living room couch where one of the children was sleeping, a police affidavit added.
On Tuesday, Miller sentenced Del Toro to more than 12 years in prison. The defendant pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute more than 5 grams of crack cocaine and possession of a firearm in connection with drug trafficking.
The judge imposed 87 months for the drug-dealing offense and a mandatory consecutive 60 months for the weapon charge, bringing the total to 147 months for the South Bend man.
The length of the sentence was appropriate, the judge reasoned, "in light of the presence of children with the guns and the drugs and the two-decade span of Mr. Del Toro's criminal activity."
Del Toro, 36, was arrested by St. Joseph County Police Department deputies who went to his house on South Grant Street to serve a warrant in 2004. The deputies were met by a barricaded front door and no answer from the people inside, according to the affidavit.
They tried putting a ladder up to an upstairs bedroom, then gained entry to an outer porch through an open window and began pounding on the front door before Del Toro finally opened it.
Inside the house, police found two sleeping children on a couch and a chair in the living room. Two other children were asleep in a back bedroom, police said.
After the officers found a plastic bag in the trash that contained a white residue believed to be crack cocaine, Del Toro directed them to the assault rifle, a loaded handgun, marijuana, cash and 18 grams of crack cocaine, which Del Toro admitted he had just finished cooking.
A federal grand jury indicted him in October and he pleaded guilty to two of the four charges against him in February of this year.
Dear Mr. Galbraith,
This is a clip:
(M1 Garand en-bloc clip)
These are clips:
(SKS stripper clips)
This is a magazine.
Can you say "mag-a-zine"? I'll bet you can.
Here we see the how the magazine of an M1 Garand is loaded, using an en-bloc clip.
Magazines for the AK-47 can also be loaded using clips. But this requires a special tool.
Can you say "tool"? I'll bet you can.
Here we see the tool. It fits on top of the magazine and allows it to be loaded using SKS stripper clips.
And here we see how this tool fits on the magazine:
And now you know the difference between a "clip" and a "magazine".
Once you've absorbed this, we'll try to explain to you what an "assault rifle" really is.
Actually, that's a beautiful presentation. I'm printing it out for some of my lesser informed friends of the NO GUNS persuasion.
I would if I could. The ignorance of the majority of journalists & reporters regarding firearms & firearms nomenclature is one of my pet peeves.
You'd think it would kill them if they had to buy/read a book on the subject, or spend a few minutes using Google.
Actually, that's a beautiful presentation.
Thanks.
The term "banana clip" has been around for some time now. You are correct in your presentation, but because of common usage, when the term "banana clip" is mentioned, people automatically think of the curved magazines.
Yup. Just like "assault rifle" is now used to describe any semi-automatic military-style rifle, when (as I'm sure everyone here knows) a true "assault rifle" is a selective-fire weapon chambered for an intermediate cartridge.
Agreed. And I also don't like a semi-auto being deemed an "assault" weapon and banned by politicians.
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