[dingbat]

if i recall correctly Shaver was not wearing pjs, he was wearing shorts. but yes, he appeared to pull up his shorts which were being dragged down because he was being forced to crawl on his hands and knees.

i would bet that almost everyone being in such a position, or standing at their front door in front of their neighbors, who felt their bottom falling down, would instinctively reach down without thinking.

some points to note about that incident -

a) he had the pellet gun as part of his job as an exterminator, even if he was careless in demonstrating how he used it to shoot birds for pest control

b) think about how easily the officers could have gone to the wrong hotel room; you, me or anyone random could've been in the room next door to Shaver and been treated the same (and probably wouldve reacted the same), even if we'd just poked out head outside our room to see what the heck was going on

[misnome]

How was he “careless” in any way? Was it not completely legal for him to own it, and completely legal for him to show it to other people, especially in the privacy of a hotel room?

I thought the right to do this was for many the single most important principle of your country, shouldn’t the police have responded to reports of somebody with a gun with “Well this is the USA, nothing to see here?”

[dingbat]

it was called in because he was pointing the rifle out of his hotel room window.

i guess it's up to you to decide for yourself whether or not that could be called "careless". or whether it would be reasonable for a passerby to call in a report of someone pointing a rifle outside of a hotel room window, a couple months after Las Vegas.

[danso]

The verdict came in a couple months after the 2017 Vegas shooting. The actual incident took place in January 2016. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver

[dingbat]

ah thanks for that bit of info. still, even pre-Vegas, i think it is reasonable to label pointing a rifle outside a hotel room window as "careless", which is the point i was responding to.

the commentor seemed to conflate the questions of "was it not completely legal for him to possess that item?" and "was it careless (legal or not) to show it off in that manner?"