Vegas Sculptor’s Blog

I found an article in the Minneapolis - St. Paul, Minnesota Star Tribune that related an all too familiar story of teen sex.

It seems the young couple met and started having sex when they were both 14 years old. The young man is now 17 and the young lady is now 16. They are also now the parents of a little girl.

Now this is not an unusual story. Throughout history 16 year olds have been having babies. Up until my generation, girls were married by the time they were 16, but even it the 60’s it was not uncommon for girls as young as 15 to have babies. It was a little more socially unacceptable, especially to be unmarried, but certainly not unheard of. Heck, these days it seems that it is the lucky parents who’s daughters aren’t pregnant before they finish high school.

No, the Star Tribune story would be totally unremarkable except for the fact that the 17 year old father is now facing charges of sexual assault on a child for having sex with the teen. The charge carries a possible 25 year jail sentence.

I just don’t understand the logic of this sort of charge. I know everyone is attempting to protect young girls from sexual predators. If the young man were in his 20’s I could understand charging him with some sort of crime for having sex with a 14 year old. But good lord, they were both 14 when they started. They have been together for at least 2 years now. Why didn’t the parents try to break it up if they thought there was a problem? It’s not like 14 or 15 year old kids can go rent a room somewhere for their liaisons, they were probably in the parents homes.

I don’t encourage teen sex. I am, however, realistic enough to know it is going to happen. But the trend of making criminals out of young boys for doing something that their hormones are tormenting them day and night to do is insane.

I did note that the boy’s name is Kou Yang. The skeptic in me can’t avoid the question of whether ethnic background may have something to do with the charges being filed.

What do you think? Should Yang be charged with assault? Should he be charged with any crime? Should the parents of the girl be charged with some crime for not supervising her activities? Should the parents of Kou be charged for not supervising him?

Maybe the people who filed the charges should be locked up for being stupid!

As most of us are aware, England has some pretty strict gun laws. As a matter of fact according to an article at Learnenglish.org, “Britain has the most severe gun control laws in the world. Handguns or pistols are banned for civilians, even for sports purposes. You must get a certificate from the police to own a shotgun or a rifle for hunting , and the certificates aren’t easy to get”.

Of course laws alone don’t keep guns off the streets. As we say in the U.S. “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns”, so in order to get illegal guns off the streets England depends on her citizens to help.

That’s what makes today’s story so amazing.

I found an article in the Liverpool Echo, and another in the Liverpool Daily Post that told the story of Shaun Wood, 22. It seems that Mr. Wood got himself into a little financial trouble.

I’m sure it’s happened to all of us. Get behind on the payments, the phone starts to ring, threats start to fly, it can be pretty unnerving. Making it especially difficult for Mr. Wood was the fact that he was behind in payments to his drug dealer.

Having dealt with a few people trying to collect credit card payments, I can only imagine to what lengths a drug dealer will go in trying to collect. But it seems that Mr. Wood’s dealer was willing to work with him. According to the articles, “To pay off the £200 cannabis bill he agreed to store small amounts of the drug at his home in Clayford Crescent, Knotty Ash.”

These “deals” have a way of getting out of hand, and Mr. Wood was ordered to hold increasingly serious drugs, including crack cocaine, until he was given a MAC sub-machine gun and ammunition to store.

In testimony in the Liverpool Crown Court, “Charles Lander, prosecuting, told the court after three months holding the weapon the pressure eventually got to Wood, who had repeatedly asked for the gun to be removed.”

“He picked up the weapon and began to walk around Southport – eventually going to the town’s police station where `visibly shaking and distressed’ he voluntarily handed it over.”

“Wood told officers he had simply wanted to get rid of the firearm and had been contemplating suicide”.

The police of course proclaimed Mr. Wood a hero and rewarded him appropriately. Just kidding, they threw him in jail!

England has a statutory five year jail term for possessing such a weapon, and apparently it doesn’t matter that someone pretty much forced him to have it.

“Judge Sean Duncan said he accepted the circumstances were exceptional enough to reduce the statutory five year jail term and sentenced Wood to 2½ years in prison. He branded Wood’s decision `brave’”.

This has got to be about the dumbest thing I have read for sometime. Someone gets a very dangerous, illegal weapon off the street and ends up in jail for doing so.

Doesn’t this discourage anyone else from turning in guns in the future? The next time someone is trying to dispose of a gun don’t you think it will likely be left somewhere where a child could possibly find it?  I doubt that it will be turned in to police.  I don’t think I would subject myself to a probable jail sentence by turning one in.