They Shoot Horsepower, Don't They?
 

They Shoot Horsepower, Don't They?


Apr 20, 1:20 PM (ET)

MIAMI (Reuters) - Fed up with his troublesome car, a Florida man fired five rounds from a semi-automatic pistol into the hood of the 1994 Chrysler LeBaron.

"I'm putting my car out of its misery," 64-year-old John McGivney said after the incident outside an apartment building in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, according to a police report that listed the car as "deceased."

McGivney surrendered to police, was jailed on a firearms charge on Friday and released on bond a day later. He told them the car had been giving him trouble for years.

"I think every guy in the universe has wanted to do it," the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Wednesday quoted McGivney as saying. "It was worth every damn minute in that jail."

Hahah... my dad had one of those...transmission broke down after 30K miles, and the soft top was pretty poorly made... still a very stupid thing to do though.

There was a guy on some documentary awhile ago who took his horrid 70's Cadillac back to the factory and set it on fire in front of the factory. ;)

Kinda stupid they took him to jail over that. How does shooting your car hurt anyone?

According to this source, it was a misdemeanor charge of "discharging a firearm in public."

After seeing a few of those bullet hole decals on cars, I've entertained taking the TOAD's tailgate out to the range and blasting a few .22 to .54 caliber holes through it.

I had an '88 LeBaron. Shooting it, would have been way too good for that thing.

It doesn't. That is unless there is a ricochet or he missed because he sneezed, tripped, etc, etc. AFAIK, in the countryside, you can get away with discharge of weapons. NOT IN THE CITY tho. Just like Arrows. I asked a cop (my neighbour) if I could shoot an arrow into a target in my garage. Answer was "NO. What if you missed for whatever reason?"

Wells its a Chrysler what did he expect? :D

If I had a really bad car I think it would be a heck of a lot of fun to shoot it. With .50cal bmg rounds of course! :D

Too bad my dad chose such a crappy mid-life crisis car... a R107 woulda been way cool ;)

Daimler Chrysler, where the Chrysler is silent.

It is hard to miss a car, or a garage I guess....around here, its the cops shooting stolen cars at drivers who are unarmed, in front of schools. Ironic that somewhere else, they put people in jail for it.

I suppose the moral of that story is, "dont steal cars, you wont get shot at"

I would gladly shoot anyone stealing my car.

I had one of those K car wagons, it ran forever, I loved it, sold it at 150,000 miles, two years later ran into the lady, she was still driving it and happy with it.

So it makes sense to shoot someone elses car, but not your own, Unless someone else is in it...? If someones stealing your car, and theyre in it driving, you wont hit them. I'm just saying nobody was hurt from this guy shooting his car, whether or not they coulda been. I coulda been killed by somebody across the country if i woulda flew there and walked in front of his car, arrest him!

I believe in gun control. That is holding the gun with both hands and hitting the target you aimed for.

It is illegal to discharge a firearm in city limits. Just like it is illegal to hunt less than so many yards from the road. It is there for a reason. Now, if you are protecting propperty or life, that is something else. I wouldn't do it unless I had a clean shot tho.

Would you want me shooting at a car with your kids nearby just in case it richochets? You are talking to a guy who shot at a tin can on the ground 20 feet away with a 44 mag and something came back and hit me a quarter inch below the eye and on the nose. I was bleeding before I knew it. I continued to shoot till I was done and then my GF said that my face was bleeding.

I understand and agree with the law, but this is after the fact, nothing DID happen. I bet nobody was around. The law prevented nobody from being hurt, nor was anyone hurt from the incident. If the law is in place to protect people, yet nobody was hurt, wheres the problem? Why hassle the guy? So he won't do it again? The cars already shot. Kind of like speeding. Nothing bad is happening, but you get a ticket for it anyway. unless you get in a wreck because of it, in which case it makes sense to get a ticket for it. But the cops get to make "use" of themselves, and the courts get their "payment". Ridiculous. Basically, the guy is arrested and jailed for something that didn't happen. Cops shoot around kids, but people love them? Cops shoot kids and they get suspended, sometimes. No fine, no criminal charge, it was "an accident".

Are you serious?

People are killed very frequently by indirect or misdirected gunfire. Here in Southern California there are a lot of kids being accidentally caught and killed in crossfire situations. It is not safe to discharge a firearm (let alone in a public area) unless the target is clearly identified and definitely NOT sheet metal or an engine block which will bounce a bullet if the angle is shallow. If he fired the bullet into the car which deflected into an adjacent home injuring or killing someone, how is that not illegal? This situation is entirely different than traffic cops making a monthly ticketing quota. Just because you REALLY hate your car doesn't mean anyone else has to suffer because of it. Would you want everyone and your neighbor to start shooting cars in the street?

BUT NOBODY WAS HURT!!!!Nobody! Why is that illegal? Not hurting someone??? And i said i agree with the law. if someone had been shot then he should be charged with manslaughter, but they werent. Always the IF. But it didnt.



Let me put it easier.... Who was hurt in this?

So you want to wait till someone gets hurt then you charge the guy, right? At that point, we charge him and the bullet magically comes out of the person that got hurt, right? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I'd want it illegal because I want to stop it BEFORE it happens. Now, you cannot stop it everytime it happens. However, if there is no law against it, more people might be doing it. I for one would love to shoot the pest that comes into my yard. No one got hurt so no harm, no foul, right? I shoot, the next guy shoots and so on and so forth, now we have a war zone. Sooner or later someone will get hurt. Later works better for me. The fewer people shooting, the less people will get hurt.

The collective will of the people. The people who vote. A law is useless unless it's enforced.

Is it OK to drive drunk if nobody gets hurt?

I will second that statement :)

You cant put a murderer in jail before he kills can you? He hasnt murdered yet. Same thing here. Laws dont prevent anything from happening, obviously, he shot his car anyway. So its illegal to shoot your car because of what might happen. How does jailing him for something not happening, stop it from happening, when he's already done it?

So he won't do it again.

You cannot unring a bell. True. however, you can try prevent the next clown from ringing the bell. If you waited for someone to get hurt, it probably will be too late. If there was no law against it or the law was set up so that if nobody gets hurt what do you think will happen? Ever look at DUI cases? Talk to them when the run someone over. Most everyone involved will say that "I thought I was safe. Sorry." You bet that if I could shoot small game out of my back yard, I would never intentionally shoot someone else. also I always hit my target and never miss either. At least never till that one time when I have an "oops". However, by then when your kid is bleeding in your driveway, will you accept it?

You know what, I'm just messing around, I was trying to get 666. I've been stuck at home with the flu. :D

However i did find the conversation interesting. It's nice to sometimes go against the grain and see what its like for people who have dissenting views once in a while. Even if this one's a little weird, but most are. :ban:

Got the rocking pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu too?

On vinyl & cassette...

What are they? :D :D

Those are highly outdated forms of recording media as compared to the latest cutting edge 8-track machines ;)