Two Illinois gun owners bent over.

[SDS-GEN]

http://www.pjstar.com/archive/x952826467/Police-WIU-students-arrested-with-cache-of-weapons

Did these guys break any laws other than speeding?  The story says guns were loaded, could be just the magazines were loaded(not illegal), and that a silencer was found (or could just be a misidentified flash surpressor).  Just seems that these guys had the book thrown at them because they had some military type gear and guns in their car.  And since when are 4 guns in a car a "cache"?

  McDonough county isn't Cook county, its pretty rural, in fact I have driven through McDonough county with a "cache" of weapons before, hell I was probably speeding.  I always thought of most of the sheriff's deputies down there as good-ol-boys who enjoyed guns and hunting as much as I did.

[Casull]

The story says guns were loaded, could be just the magazines were loaded(not illegal), and that a silencer was found (or could just be a misidentified flash surpressor).

Could be the guns were loaded and they had a silencer.  What makes you think otherwise?

[d_hiker]

The story reminded me of something that happened last summer.  We were on our way to the p-dog shoot in Hooker, OK.  We were driving through Kansas and between 1:00am and 2:00 there were signs forcing an exit into a rest area, they even had a KDOT truck parked across both lanes of the interstate with all of it's lights flashing.  They were doing a traffic check.  I could see a couple of groups of officers searching a couple of vehicles ahead of us.  I wonder what the news headlines were going to read about us.  I think we had 7 or 8 rifles, including an AR and one handgun with us.  We had hmmmm between 5,000 and 8,000 rounds of ammo, granted a couple thousand rounds was the .22lr bulk packs, but they still count.  The Jeep Cherokee was loaded with all of our stuff.

When I was motioned to pull up I was asked for my license.  He took a quick look at it and waved us on through.  I was almost disappointed we didn't get a chance to explain ourselves.  But we might have missed meeting up with the group in the morning.

[SDS-GEN]

It just seems that a story like this pops up a couple of times a year.  The media blows it into something it isn't.  Huge caches of "assault weapons" (my gun collection would make these caches look puny, and I don't have a ton of guns) are laid out in front of the camera, some bullets and camoflage strewn around to make the evil, domestic terrorists look like some off the wall "militia".  The reporters never say that the guns were legally owned and that all the paraphenalia breaks no law.  The people in question are usually under arrest for some petty non-violent offense or completely unrelated offense. 

I wonder about these cases, what happened to the arrested and their guns.  Of course we don't know because the media won't follow up on a story that makes themselves look like idiots. 

Could be the guns were loaded and they had a silencer.  What makes you think otherwise?

The lawyer for these guys said that they broke no law, maybe he is telling the truth?  The thing is we will probably never hear another thing about this and never know.

[SDS-GEN]

In thinking about this, I have phrased what I wanted to say properly.  I have not phrased my questions properly. 

Do you think anything will come of this?  Do you think this case will just fade away?  What do you think the chances are that the media blew this out of proportion and the Sheriff's office is saying things to back up their investigation?  Laws aside, do you think these guys did anything wrong?

[d_hiker]

I think sometimes we get caught in situations that just aren't what they seem.  One night I had been helping with an evening program with a group of boy scouts.  After we got done they wanted to play capture the flag.  One of the boys got some ash out of the fire pit and blackened his face and of course so did the other boys.  They finally talked both of us leaders into doing the same thing.  Playing capture the flag in the dark, why not blacken our faces.  After the game we sat around the campfire and had snacks.  As they were turning in I headed home.  As I was driving through a small town I got pulled over by the local police, I had a burnt out tail light.  I thought it was strange watching through the rear view mirror as the officer approach my car, he had his hand on his weapon and was very cautious.  He asked the usual questions about license, and insurance.  He shined his flashlight around the inside of the car.  He also asked where I was going and then where I had been, when I said I was up at the scout camp his attitude changed and he smiled.  He did give me a written warning about the tail light being not working.  It wasn't until I was adjusting the rear view mirror that I noticed my face was still blackened.

[d_hiker]

Do you think anything will come of this?  Do you think this case will just fade away?  What do you think the chances are that the media blew this out of proportion and the Sheriff's office is saying things to back up their investigation?  Laws aside, do you think these guys did anything wrong?

From the limited info in the article, I think this is all blown out of proportion.  Unless they aren't telling us everything, like a laptop that had their plans on it, or threatening notes.  In which case I doubt they would have gotten out on bail so cheap.  I think it will just fade away.

Hey, in looking at the picture again, I had better be careful.  I have one of those 4-D cell Maglights under my front seat and it is loaded with 4 D sized Alkaline batteries.

[torpedoman]

I was being transferred once and i always moved my guns myself. The wife needed diapers and i was looking in the trunk for some and a guy pulled up and lit it up for me found the diapers and turned to thank him and it was a VA trooper, his comment was "you got more guns in there than we got at the armory" and a big laugh. The news here always makes a big play if someone arrested for anything has weapons, never reports that they were legal. It is part of the gun grabbers plan and they are all for it. read the link and noticed that not a single round was fired by anyone at this arrest must have been real hard core bad guys, all that firepower and could'nt take out a deputy, someone needs to get real here.

[Casull]

The lawyer for these guys said that they broke no law, maybe he is telling the truth?

Have you ever, EVER heard a lawyer say "yep, my client is guilty"? 

[Glanceblamm]

The media blows it into something it isn't.

Ditto, In a lot of cases. I am not saying that these guys are innocent but the sensationalisim of the head lines are what sells those papers.

[S.B.]

It does indeed look like they had a Browning Buck Mark with a silencer attached but, when blowing up the pic, it gets fuzzy, so, who knows for sure? Most of their ammo looks to be Federal .22LR buik pack? Sounds and looks like the kind of stuff every young man, around here anyway, wants or has? Could of been a couple of "Wantobes" playing cyops of army?
Steve