Meredith Graves
A Tea Party activist busted at La Guardia Airport trying to place his California-licensed handgun into checked baggage got off with a disorderly-conduct charge yesterday.
Mark Meckler’s no-jail deal comes as city district attorneys are grappling with a growing number of otherwise law-abiding gun owners who accidentally run afoul of New York’s strict gun-control regulations.
“Apparently, this happens to hundreds of people per year in New York City,” Meckler, co-founder of the influential Tea Party Patriots, fumed on his Web site after court today.
Similar recent high-profile arrests have sparked calls in the Legislature and by The Post to re-examine New York’s tough 2006 gun law, which critics say fails to properly account for criminal intent.
On Dec. 15, a Detroit-bound Meckler had alerted La Guardia security that he had an unloaded 9mm Glock in a locked box and wanted to include it with his checked luggage.
Instead, he was charged with felony criminal possession of a weapon and faced a mandatory 3 1/2 to 15 years in prison.
“Until you have felt the handcuffs on your wrists and until you have heard that cell door close behind you, it is impossible to understand what it means to actually lose your liberty,” Meckler, who declined to comment outside court, wrote on his blog yesterday.
By pleading to disorderly conduct, he was hit with a $250 fine in Queens Criminal Court. His Glock 27 was not returned.
“My attorney advised me that I can attempt to pursue the return of my firearm but that to do so would cost me more than the firearm is worth,” Meckler, 49, wrote.
“I understand the problem of gun violence, but there has to be a better way to solve this,” said Meckler’s lawyer, Brian Stapleton. “Arresting law-abiding citizens for declaring a licensed firearm is anti-Second Amendment.”
Meanwhile, Meredith Graves, a tourist arrested after trying to check her Tennessee-permitted pistol at the 9/11 Memorial last month, is negotiating a possible no-jail plea, sources said.
Additional reporting by Laura Italiano