Jerry Lewis Cited For Carrying Prop Gun In Luggage At Airport
Granted, it was his carry on luggage and the prop gun was apparently a real gun that had been hollowed out, but even so. Couldn’t authorities have exercised some discretion upon realizing that the gun was completely disabled? And that an 82-year-old Jerry Lewis was unlikely to hijack much of anything?
After all, our laws are intended to protect us. Not convict/fine/imprison as many of us as possible.
And then there’s this rather Orwellian-sounding quote from officer responsible for the citation in answer to a question about whether or not a prop gun could be considered a weapon:
Cassell says if the gun were merely a prop “it wouldn’t be a weapon and we couldn’t cite him for carrying a weapon.”
Got that? If the gun wasn’t a weapon because they cited him for carrying a weapon. But obviously it was a weapon because they cited him for it.
Meaning that the determining factor for whether or not the prop was a weapon was whether or not the cops thought it was a weapon and not whether or not it was capable of actually hurting anyone.
Do I think people should be able to carry guns into the passenger cabins of airplanes? I don’t, actually, but I also don’t think octogenarian comedians should be cited for accidentally putting a stage prop in their carry-ons either.
