.22-Caliber Rifles to Kill Skunk: Grammar Police - Is Max Benitz Jr. in Trouble?
I read in the Tri-Cycle Herald this morning that a pesky skunk took a dirt nap with the help of Max Benitz Jr., one of the Benton County Commissioners. Seems Benitz did not know that it was against the law to shoot skunks in the city (he is a ‘county’ official not a ‘city’ official, so how would he know).
Besides the facts of the story a couple things struck my funny bone:
He said they called animal control and other authorities, but no one responded.
If a county commissioner can not get animal control or other authorities to respond - what are we poor peons to do when we need help?
But the question I will pose to Miss Mrs. Grammar is this sentence from the Prosser Municipal Code:
“Any person who, within the corporate limits of the city of Prosser, loads or discharges or fires any air or gas or other compression gun, rifle or pistol is guilty of a misdemeanor.”
So my question is does this statement only apply to air or gas or other compression firearms? In other words do ‘air or gas or other compression’ modify just gun or all three nouns, gun, rifle and pistol. Look at their other uses of ‘or’ when they meant 3 different things earlier in the same sentence they do not use a comma to separate but a redundant ‘or’:
loads or discharges or fires
If they really did not mean to limit it to air pistols and air rifles they should have put those two items before the modifiers, i.e.: “pistols, rifles, or air guns.” No confusion.
Another question I have as I read this statement again - if it is illegal to load a firearm in the city, is it legal to carry a loaded weapon in the city that I loaded in the county? If Benitz had a ‘conceal carry permit’ could he do any of the above illegal activities? Police officers are allowed to do these ‘illegal things’ so what are the other exceptions?
But my real question is the first. Could you get off on a technicality - I thought it only applied to Air Guns, Air Pistols, and Air Rifles?
I would agree: change the order of the last list to avoid the ambiguity. There’s nothing grammatically wrong, but it is ambiguous.
Comment by Mystie — August 12, 2005 @ 7:14 pm
I don’t know about Prosser Municipal Code, but I do know about state regulations. RCW 9.41.290 clearly establishes that state regulations preempt all local ordinances. And if you possess a CPL it is legal to carry a concealed firearm anywhere in the state except for:
(RCW 9.41.280, RCW 9.41.300)
Cities are allowed to further implement restrictions on firearms in stadiums or convention centers run by the municipality, except that such restrictions do not apply to the exceptions below or to carriers of a CPL. Law enforcement, military, and security guards employed on the premesis are excempt from most of the above (even regular law enforcement is not allowed to carry firearms in a courtroom under a couple of cases).
The “exceptions” to the rules such as police officers are listed in RCW 9.41.060 and essentially amount to law enforcement officers, military personnel when on duty, members of target shooting clubs (when en route to or from an event), hunters (when en route to or from hunting), etc.
I don’t know of state regulations covering the physical act of loading a firearm, but that ordinance (if it’s saying what it appears to say) seems pretty silly to me, since under state law it would obviously be entirely legal for a person with a CPL to carry a loaded firearm within city limits.
Still, it would very much surprise me if Benitz didn’t know it was illegal to discharge firearms within city limits. That’s an extremely common ordinance…in fact, I don’t know of a city where it is legal, for fairly obvious reasons. Sounds to me like he just didn’t think he’d get caught and is now playing dumb. :) But we all know what ignorance of the law isn’t…
Comment by Matt Winckler — August 12, 2005 @ 8:21 pm