Posted on 12/17/2008 5:53:16 PM PST by tkocur
Garry Latcham thought he was carrying a harmless gift for his North Carolina host when he boarded a plane from his native England in November, planning to spend four days hunting in rural Person County.
Instead, the gifts -- two silencers intended for air guns -- landed Latcham and his traveling companion in jail for nearly a month, after customs agents mistook the men for terrorists. Federal officials now say that the men were vacationers with no criminal plot. But they were still forced to plead guilty to felonies, because they failed to declare the $55 silencers on their customs forms.
The two working-class men, both of whom have young families, ran up thousands of dollars in legal bills and spent 24 days in crowded county jails before being allowed to return home last week.
"We came for a holiday of a lifetime, and we got one," Latcham said this week from his home in England. "I will never come back to the United States, ever."
He gave only a short interview, saying he wanted a contribution to his legal fees before speaking at length.
In a news release last week, U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said the prosecution of Latcham and his friend, George Hope, "highlights the importance of the Customs Declaration Form individuals must fill out when they enter the United States and of the laws and rules governing travel between countries."
Their lawyer, Doug Kingsbery of Raleigh, said the British men's treatment was unnecessarily harsh. Even the federal judge who heard the case thought the men should be released from jail, and questioned the point of the prosecution...
If stupidity were a crime, these guys should be executed.
I'm sure they met some real nice young men during their 24 day stay in various N.C. jails. I'll bet some of these "new friends" they made were there for crimes a little more serious than paperwork violations.
Welcome to America! Enjoy your stay and be sure and come back now!
Cry babies.
In my mind, every commercial airline passenger should be required to either carry their own larg-caliber handgun or be issued one at the boarding gate (to be returned to a bin upon disembarking).
I for one applaud Customs for doing their job in catching this and thoroughly investigating.
Was 24 days in jail really necessary? This couldn't have been remedied any other way short of locking them up for nearly a month with some of North Carolina's finest citizens?
Is this how you'd want to be treated vacationing in a foreign country for an innocent paperwork violation?
I for one hope you forgot your sarcasm tags.
Darwin award.
This country is doomed.
I know someone whose brother was killed by an air rifle. Guy in a car driving by shot him between the ribs and it went in far enough to tear the pericardium. Blood pooled between his chest wall and his heart and it stopped his heart.
What normal person in the US would consider an air gun silencer is legally a firearm?
Only someone who is familiar with the arcane thought behind BATF regulations.
How can anyone expect an average foreign national to believe that a an air gun silencer is a firearm?
If you are going to take anything that is related to a firearm on a plane, check with the airline about checking it in. Remember TSA agents tend to be really stupid and don’t like whites. I ran into that once getting off a cruise when some of obama’s cousins were given uniformes and badges. They were total idiots and jealous that they couldn’t go on a cruise.
It’s more like Mexico than a lot of Americans are willing to admit.
WARNING: He's a hard-core Libertarian, and writes sci-fi from a Libertarian point of view.
the gifts -- two silencers intended for air guns -- landed Latcham and his traveling companion in jail for nearly a month... forced to plead guilty to felonies, because they failed to declare the $55 silencers on their customs forms.
This article does a poor job of explaining the situation.
My first question, still unanswered, is whether these “silencers” are readily available for legal sale here in the U.S.
If they are, why were the Brits importing them? If they are not, why did the Brits think they could import them undeclared?
Amazing! I had no idea anyone made large-caliber airguns in this day and age. The Quackenbush web page recommended no more than four good shots from each 3000psi filling with velocity averaging 800 fps for the .50 Bandit.
It did not say what the effective range limit was for say, deer. Nor did it say how much the Bandit model actually weighed. The speed of sound is officially 1087fps so a “damper” would be effective for an 800fps airgun. I gather a .50 airgun would make a helluva “snap!”
If the gun is an “AirSoft” gun, then they do make ‘silencers’... except that they don’t do anything except look ‘cool’.
Basically, it’s a lump of plastic molded to look like the real thing.
Having been in South Korea a number of times, I’ve found that they actually have stores dedicated to selling nothing but realistic looking plastic-pellet airguns.
I was also looking for sarcasm tags, but given the other comments on this thread, I think they mean it.
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