The U.S. Virgin Islands are, well, islands. They're land masses sitting there in the middle of the ocean, and they're far enough away that there aren't exactly bridges to the mainland. I mean, it ain't Long Island, and that's important. You see, it's important because it means that access to the territory is through various means that are mostly controlled, such as plane.
And despite that kind of control of access, a recent arrest makes it clear you just can't stop bad guys from doing bad guy things.
It wasn't just guns, but the something else that makes this fascinating to me.
A traffic stop in downtown Charlotte Amalie early Sunday morning led police to two handguns, ammunition, suspected marijuana and a device designed to convert a firearm to automatic fire. The driver, Shanon Roberts, was arrested on multiple felony firearms and drug charges, all of which were upheld during his initial court appearance Tuesday.
Just before 2 a.m. on October 11, officers patrolling Charlotte Amalie spotted a red Kia Soul traveling east on Kronprindsens Gade. The vehicle resembled one reportedly used as a getaway car in a robbery the previous month, prompting officers to conduct a registration check. When the license plates did not appear in the registration system, police stopped the vehicle.
Roberts was instructed to exit the Kia and informed that officers would conduct a search. Inside, police say they discovered plant material that tested positive for marijuana during a field test, along with a scale.
Officers also recovered several bags that Roberts reportedly acknowledged belonged to him. One contained two additional containers of suspected marijuana. Another held a lockbox containing a handgun, two magazines, loose ammunition of various calibers and a device designed to convert a firearm to automatic fire.
A third bag contained another handgun and a magazine. Forensic technicians subsequently identified the recovered weapons as a Smith & Wesson 9x19mm handgun and a Glock 26 9mm handgun.
Now, I'm not so sure this constitutes a legal search, but I could be wrong there.
The marijuana appears to be legal in the territory, which isn't a shock to me. Also not a shock is that somehow, an auto-sear managed to show up in the Virgin Islands.
Of course, this is a device that is illegal at the federal level, and because of the nature of how people get to the Virgin Islands, no one just drove it across the state line into the territory.
The guns were unlicensed, which suggests they weren't exactly a legal purchase, an interesting fact considering, again, the Virgin Islands are more contained than, say, the state of Illinois. Because of the fact that most people access the islands via an airline, that would theoretically make it hard to smuggle such a thing in from another state.
And yet, we have illegal guns and an illegal conversion device, all in territory with strict gun control laws and water completely surrounding it so no one can just drive there, drop off a shipment of illegal guns, then go home.
Where there's a criminal will, there's a criminal way.
The sooner anti-gunners come to understand that, the sooner we can all call it a day. At least, that's what would happen if it's really about stopping bad guys, versus stopping us.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
Help us continue to report on and expose the Democrats’ gun-grabbing schemes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member