Posted on 04/17/2018 10:48:38 AM PDT by PROCON
The guns and ammo were found in the basement of a 60-year-old man’s home in Queens after a search warrant (Photos: NYPD)
Officers with the 81st Precinct in the Bayside area of Queens seized over 60 guns and quantity of ammunition from an area man after a tip about illegal weapons.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced Monday that Ronald Drabman, 60, was arrested over the weekend and charged with a staggering 110 weapons violations, mostly for criminal possession. Following a search warrant of his home’s basement, authorities seized 45 long arms, 23 pistols, a zip gun, a couple of airguns and 50,000 rounds of ammunition.
“The defendant is accused of using his home as a warehouse for illegal firearms – along with tens of thousands of rounds of live ammunition,” Brown said. “This stockpile of weapons poses a great risk to the residents of Queens. It is extremely disturbing to find such an arsenal of firearms in a residential community.”
NYPD Chief of Intelligence Thomas Galati said the gun bust was one of the largest in the department’s history from a single individual and well as what he described as an “unprecedented amount of ammunition.”
The firearms shown off at the conference included a number of collectible arms or at least guns rarely seen in Queens. Among these are an AR with what looks like a Colt Light Machine Gun front end, a Mossberg bullpup shotgun, and a Franchi SPAS-12. One of the rifles seems to be a fairly rare Italian BM59 in a Nigerian pistol grip stock while a Mauser 1934 Pocket Model, Walther P-38, and a Browning Hi-Power rest on table display of pistols.
(Excerpt) Read more at guns.com ...
Yep perfectly legal and may I say a small collection if he lived in say ....Texas.
All those polidiot popo POS desk jockeys getting they’re picture taken as if they had just captured a terrorist ....... doom on em.
In Texas or Arizona we would call that an okay gun collection.
I believe Mr. Heston’s collection
was auctioned and offered to other
collectors. SNOPES has claimed
this vault as not belonging to
Carlton, but to an attorney named
Bruce E Stern. I remember seeing
a documentary where Charlton
invited the film crew to see his
collection in his basement.
You are correct in that the seized
weapons will not be destroyed.
The following are simply opinions (I am NOT a lawyer). First, I'm not sure if anyone can tell (based only on these photos) if anything pictured is "illegal" - for instance, any of the firearms depicted might actually be a non-firing replica. Second, the short barreled AR you mention has a buttstock, which I beleve makes it a rifle under federal laws/regs, rather than a pistol. Finally, state laws vary immensely, and other factors (the owner's legal status as a convicted felon or LEO, for example) might determine the legality of possessing anything shown in the photos...
bgill wrote:
What was illegal about it?
My thoughts, as well.
In NYC all semiauto rifles are illegal - They have been so since the reign of king Dinkins. And yes the NYPD confiscated a number that were legally registered (in 1976 with the promise that the registration lists would never be used for confiscation)
Thanks for the update.
"...In NYC all semiauto rifles are illegal..."
That's all they got?
http://www.queensda.org/newpressreleases/2018/APR_2018/draman_04_16_2018_cmp.pdf
Rifles aren’t guns gangs buy. They like pistols that can be concealed easily, especially high cap semiautomatic pistols.
That's all they got?
No sh*t, from the document:
The defendant now faces a lengthy term of incarceration for this obsession with weapons.”
So his 'obsession' with weapons was criminal too?
Paper crime.
I notice none of the school board, or law enforcement personnel in Broward County, Florida have been arrested for violating federal gun laws resulting in 17 student deaths.
Gangs often use rifles for drive-bys.
We shall see.
This is what $40-50,000 or more worth of weapons which only the rich have lying around to invest in guns.
A freeper posted a month or more ago and explained how one thought on the 2nd Amendment was that the purpose of a “well-regulated Milita” was to provide a check against a large federal army. Prior to Lexington/Concord the British had taken powder from a town. That town and county quickly dissolved their British militia and replaced it with a state militia (with all of the former members just reinstated!) But - they trained weekly, men too poor to have weapons or munitions were provided it, and they were ORGANIZED. (The minutemen were created at this time - just 6 months or so before Lexington/Concord).
Below is a wiki excerpt that corresponds to that freeper’s thoughts on it. Of course without a local, well organized militia, we are all just separate citizens. And when our guns and ammo are taken away, we become nutcases with an “arsenal”. Or we are a felon that broke some arbitrary law with a shotgun barrel an inch too short. (Or in some states, did not have a gun registered, or not in a safe, or with a bipod, or....) And no - I don’t believe that the state’s National Guard come close to being a militia.
Wiki Excerpt:
While both James Monroe and John Adams supported the Constitution being ratified, its most influential framer was James Madison. In Federalist No. 46, Madison wrote how a federal army could be kept in check by state militias, “a standing army ... would be opposed [by] a militia.” He argued that state militias “would be able to repel the danger” of a federal army, “It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.” He confidently contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he contemptuously described as “afraid to trust the people with arms.” He assured his fellow citizens that they need never fear their government because “besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition”.
Good for you Richard! Those guns might have risen up, marched up the basement stars, through the house, out into the street and started shooting innocent, unarmed civilians.
Thank you so much for neutralizing this vicious threat to the neighborhood.
By the way, is owning ammo illegal in NYC? If not, why was it seized?
Exactly. As a homeowner, family man, wage-earner, etc., you have something to lose. Any who dare shows resistance, will be arrested, sued, fired, etc., one at at time, and alone.
That’s a day at the range around here.
Cold dead hands comes to mind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.