It’s perfectly legal to travel, even by airplane, with a firearm. I tend to avoid it because it’s such a pain in the posterior, but I don’t fly a lot anyway. Professional athletes, however, do fly a good bit, especially during the season. Half of their games are away, and it’s not like high school football, where your opponent is just a couple of hours away by bus.
The Carolina Panthers aren’t taking a bus to play the LA Rams, after all.
So, they fly, and for any of them looking to be armed while doing so–something professional athletes might want to consider–they have to declare their firearm at the airline counter.
And one NFL player got arrested when he did that.
Green Bay Packers player Rasheed Walker was arrested at LaGuardia Airport Friday morning after he tried to check a bag that contained a handgun and ammunition, prosecutors said.
The 25-year-old offensive lineman was taken into custody just before 11 a.m. after telling a Delta Air Lines employee that his luggage contained a locked box holding his 9mm Glock pistol, according to a criminal complaint.
Port Authority police were alerted and responded to Terminal C, where they searched his bag and found the firearm and 36 rounds of ammo secured in the locked case.
In other words, Walker was trying to comply with the law, but New York’s draconian gun regulations came into play, and he got arrested instead.
And the kicker is that we only know about this because Walker is a professional football player. Because of his job, it made the news. How many other people try to comply with the law in the exact same way, but we never hear about their arrests because they’re an accountant from Akron or something?
But this one we did learn about, and the Second Amendment Foundation is less than thrilled.
Via a press release:
New York’s draconian gun control laws have struck again with the arrest of NFL athlete Rasheed Walker at LaGuardia Airport after he properly declared a firearm in his checked luggage, an incident which underscores the continued anti-gun extremism in the state, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms declared.
Walker, an offensive lineman with the Green Bay Packers, legally owns the firearm in Wisconsin, according to published reports. He was arrested after declaring the handgun and ammunition to a Delta Air Lines employee at as he checked in for a flight. His attorney told the New York Post Walker did not realize he could not travel with the gun in New York. The gun was locked in a gun box inside his checked baggage.
“Once again,” observed CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “New York’s irrational gun control restrictions are creating legal nightmares for a U.S. citizen who obeyed the law by reporting the firearm in his luggage. Virtually anywhere else in the country, Mr. Walker could legally travel with his firearm by declaring it at check-in, but in New York they treat traveling gun owners like criminals thanks to a statute which should have been nullified decades ago by the Firearm Owner’s Protection Act of 1986.
“New York lawmakers and law enforcement need a crash course on the Second Amendment,” he continued, “and when they discuss gun control at the Legislature in Albany there should be at least one adult in the room who understands what the Supreme Court was telling them with the 2022 ruling in the Bruen case.
“Instead,” Gottlieb observed, “New York legislators have continued to react like spoiled children by not correcting the state’s notoriously regressive and restrictive gun control laws, so that citizens such as Mr. Walker would no longer have to put up with this tyrannical nonsense.”
Walker is reportedly scheduled to appear in court on March 19, where his attorney, Arthur Aidala, predicted the case will be dismissed.
“The charge should never have been brought in the first place,” Gottlieb said, “and Walker should never have been arrested because the law is an abomination.”
“Abomination” is putting it mildly.
Let’s understand that this is someone leaving the city, who is complying with federal laws, who has done nothing to hurt anyone in the city of New York beyond blocking them, as is his job as a left tackle, and gets arrested for saying, “I have a gun in my luggage, properly stored and ready for transport in accordance with all rules and regulations as I’m aware of them.”
Now, I get that there’s a point where you have to maintain that ignorance of the law is no defense, but there also has to be a point where you have to understand that literally no one knows the laws in every place they might go, particular somewhere like New York where there are so damn many gun control laws that even a good-faith attempt at understanding them all might leave gaps in one’s knowledge.
Walker shouldn’t have been charged. Not because he’s an NFL player, but because the law is vile and unconstitutional.
While it’s good that there’s a likelihood that Walker’s case will be dismissed, the problem there is that it’s likely to be dismissed because Walker is a “someone.” He’s a pro athlete, and the courts are often more lenient with them than they are with regular folks like you and me. I doubt we’d get the same treatment.
That’s not to say Walker should stand trial, mind you. My point is that no one should. The law itself is the problem, not someone’s standing in the community, their profile on the national stage, or anything of the like.
The law is the problem.
That’s what needs to be relegated to the dumpster fire of history.
Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.
Help us continue to report on their efforts and legislative successes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.
Read the full article here
