Lawyers, Guns, and Money

Down in Montgomery County, MD, the day after the heartripping massacre in the Florida high school, a young man attending Clarksburg High decided it would be a good idea to bring a loaded gun to school. 

Someone in one of this classes saw something and said something, so the student, Alwin Chen, was arrested. He told police he had a gun in his backpack and a knife in his shirt pocket. As well as a list of grievances against his fellow students, a red flag of violence about to occur if ever there was one.

A young man and part of his weaponry

So, the police went to Chen's home and found a cache of weapons including two rifles, a shotgun, a ballistic vest, inert grenades, two handguns and a replica electrical firing device and ammunition.

Chen is currently being held without bond. "Multiple people, including the crisis intervention team and the court diagnostic team that screened him before before the bond review, were all making recommendations that there be a psychiatric evaluation for dangerousness. They did in fact order that evaluation and there is no court date yet set in this matter," Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy told reporters.

At first, Chen claimed that he had the gun with him because he was going to take target practice after school, but that story fell apart like a cheap pair of pants, so he amended it to say that he felt the need to bring protection with him because he was being bullied. He even admitted that he had brought the gun to school on previous occasions.

"Mr. Chen was cooperative at all times. There were no allegations that he made any specific or even general threats to anyone. There was no statement that he showed the alleged weapon to anyone. There is no allegation that he presented a danger," Chen's defense attorney, David Felsen, said.

Once again, I have to hand it to another member of the legal profession for their steadfast determination to look at a hurricane coming down the street and calling it a pleasant spring sprinkle - or nothing at all.

Felsen told the Washington POST that Chen has received two college scholarship offers — from schools in Maryland and Florida — is on the honor roll, and “has never been in any trouble,” and what's more, that his client does not appear to suffer from mental illness.

Felsen would not discuss why Chen felt the need to backpack a piece, but suggested Chen didn’t intend to hurt anyone. “This is a young man who has desires of helping people, in terms of being a police officer or being in the military,” Felsen said.

And the lawyer said the young man's parents "are hard-working. They have a business. They work together. They’re very quiet, gentle people. They are very involved parents. They are worried for their son’s safety in the jail, as any parent would be.”

Dude, how about the other parents who have to worry about their sons and daughters being safe in school? There aren't any guns in jail, one supposes.

I think that attorney Felsen would serve society better by saying, "This is a kid who is being bullied, and we need to work that out, but he needs some reinforcement of the principle that threatening people with a gun, or shooting them with one, is not the way to react to being picked on in gym class."

But what do I know?