Idaho woman sentenced for mailing loaded .357 Magnum

[SecularMotion]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by krispos42 (a host of the Gun Control & RKBA group).

Gun accidentally fires at Springfield mail processing center

A 47-year-old Idaho woman was given a year of probation in federal court Wednesday after admitting to mailing the loaded .357 magnum handgun that accidentally fired last December at the Springfield mail processing center, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

No one was injured at the Springfield facility when the gun went off on Dec. 4, but one worker who was holding the package when the gun fired had to be treated at a hospital for ringing in the ears and stinging hands, said the office of Wendy J. Olson, U.S. Attorney for the state of Idaho.

Tami Dee Bachart of McCall, Idaho, pleaded guilty in May to charges of mailing injurious articles, and causing a firearm to be present in a federal facility.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ordered Bachart to a year of probation, to perform 200 hours of community service and pay $4397.28 in restitution and fines. During sentencing, Winmill noted that Bachart made a mistake and did not intend to hurt anyone. However, he cautioned her that her mistake could very well have resulted in the loss of life.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/08/idaho_woman_sentenced_for_mail.html#incart_m-rpt-1

[dem in texas]

1. Was she taking Stupid Pills?

Dear Lord, please protect us from fools like this!

[ileus]

2. How was he abusing the box to make the revolver go off???

[flying_fish]

3. The stinging hands sounds like the worker must have open the package and been handling the gun

[Eleanors38]

4. My old Ruger Service 6 can only fire one way: Use of trigger.

Seems like a reasonable sentence.

[stone space]

5. Seems to be some victim blaming going on here in this thread.

Yeah, it's the postal worker's fault that the gun went off.

[benEzra]

6. Since guns "go off" when the trigger is pulled (accidentally or otherwise),

one can certainly speculate as to how the trigger was pulled. Unless the revolver was packed cocked (unlikely) and there was something in the package to pull the trigger, or the revolver was very old (pre-transfer-bar-safeties) and dropped exactly right onto the hammer spur (where was the packaging?), there are certainly interesting questions as to how it happened.

It wasn't necessarily nefarious (perhaps a postal employee figured out what it was, realized handguns aren't allowed in U.S. Mail, and was attempting to unpack it, for example), but guns don't just "go off" spontaneously.

[krispos42]

7. Locking

This really is a mail crime, not a gun crime.

Regards,
Krispos42, Group Host