Juvenile online shopping simulation gun was seized by customs and sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime of smuggling weapons.
Zhangzhou, China, April 15 (Reporter Bai Jiege) According to the Voice of China report, people who have played real CS are no strangers to simulation guns. However, a Fujian teenager never imagined that an online shopping brought him jail. Two years ago, 18-year-old Xiao Liu bought 24 "simulation guns" online from a seller in Taiwan Province, but they were seized by the customs. After identification, 20 of them turned out to be guns.
In August 2014, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime of smuggling weapons. The court held that buying and selling simulation guns was prohibited by law, and the smuggled simulation guns were identified as guns, which constituted the crime of smuggling weapons, and the circumstances were particularly serious.
Although it is final, lawyers believe that the details of the purchase link are still controversial. This week, the Higher People’s Court of Fujian Province has filed a case for review. So, how did the simulation gun become a real gun?
The last time Ms. Hu saw her son Xiao Liu was on March 20th this year. She visited Zhangzhou Prison in Fujian once a month. Ms. Hu said that he was very pessimistic. He always feels that he has been sentenced to life imprisonment, and no matter how good his performance is, he will be about our age.
In 2014, at the age of 18, Xiao Liu bought 24 "BB guns for survival games" from a seller in Taiwan Province through the Internet in his hometown in Sichuan, with a total price of 30,540 yuan.
Ms. Hu said that she knew that he had discussed with herself, "He likes to play this game. We also told him at that time, so just buy one or two, not so many. He told us that if one or two were delivered in Taiwan Province, it would take 30,000 yuan to deliver the goods."
Xiao Liu didn’t get these guns, but waited for the customs staff at home: "The money was later returned. I heard that the seller told my son that this thing was detained by the customs and I will return the money to you." Ms. Hu said that it took more than a month from buying things to returning money, and it took more than half a month for people who came to the customs to go home.
Ms. Hu said that at first they didn’t realize the seriousness of the problem: "Because they didn’t receive anything, they didn’t see anything. We think it may be closed at most and will be released in a few months. "
On September 29th, 2014, Xiao Liu was arrested on suspicion of smuggling weapons. On April 30 last year, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Intermediate People’s Court of Quanzhou City, Fujian Province for smuggling weapons. On August 25, the Higher People’s Court of Fujian Province rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.
Lawyer Xu Xin, a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology Law School, became Xiao Liu’s defender after this. Last November, he met with Xiao Liu: "His state is very bad, and he feels very wronged and incomprehensible. He said that he just had such a hobby, and he was suddenly sentenced, and it was life imprisonment. He felt that life was hopeless and desperate. "
Combined with the materials written by Xiao Liu, Xu Xin filed a plea of innocence with the Higher People’s Court of Fujian Province: the main reason for making a plea of innocence is very sufficient, because one of the biggest problems found in the process of studying this case is that it is very likely that his simulation gun was not bought by the party concerned.
Xu Xin said that the judgments in the first and second instance only proved that Xiao Liu was shopping with a seller named "Blue Sea and Blue Sky" and that a couple from Taiwan Province delivered goods to Xiao Liu, but it could not prove that the couple from Taiwan Province were "Blue Sea and Blue Sky": "The key problem is that the guns he bought are different from the guns he was detained at last. The biggest difference is that the four long guns he bought are all rechargeable, but all the detained guns are inflatable."
Xu Xin also questioned some evidence in the judgments of the first and second instance. He said that Xiao Liu only bought a toy gun, and there was no subjective intention and no harm: he bought a gun for his own fun and collection, and subjectively there was no criminal intention. And objectively, he didn’t commit a crime. He didn’t get the gun at all, and objectively, he didn’t receive it.
For a non-standard gun that can’t fire standard ammunition, it also looks like a gun. Is it a real gun or a simulation gun in law? In the "Regulations on Performance Appraisal of Firearms and Ammunition Involved by Public Security Organs" issued by the Ministry of Public Security of China in 2001, the judgment standard is to shoot with a dry pine board with a thickness of 25.4mm, and the muzzle is 1 meter away from the board. If the warhead penetrates this pine board, it is judged that this gun is enough to cause death; The bullet or shrapnel stuck on the pine board, which proves that the gun is enough to hurt people. The above two cases are identified as guns, that is, real guns. In 2010, the Ministry of Public Security revised the "Work Regulations", which did not mention the identification method of this experiment, but clearly stated that the muzzle specific kinetic energy of the projectile fired was greater than or equal to 1.8 Joule/cm2, and it was all recognized as a gun. In 2007, the related Standards for Identification of Simulation Guns and Criteria for Forensic Scientific Appraisal of Guns’ Injuries have already mentioned the demarcation value of 1.8 Joules/cm2, which is based on the fact that it can affect the most vulnerable part of human body — — Bare eyes cause minor injuries, but they cannot penetrate the skin.
The change of this standard has caused controversy. Xiao Liu’s defense lawyer Xu Xin said: "His case involves the biggest problem, and it is also the biggest motivation for me to pay attention to this case because it involves more and more ordinary people. Because of the current identification of China simulation gun, the standard for identifying it as a real gun is very low, that is, the muzzle specific kinetic energy is 1.8 Joule/cm2, which is equivalent to one-ninth of the standard in 2001, which is much lower than the old standard. Only one red dot can appear at close range, and the skin can’t be injured. "
According to the inquiry of Zhu Zhengfu, a member of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the standard for determining the lethality of firearms in Japan and Taiwan Province is 20 Joules/cm2, which is 11 times that of the current standard of China Ministry of Public Security. Therefore, guns that are legal toys in neighboring countries and regions will be identified as "guns with China characteristics" as soon as they enter the country, and the punishment for the relevant parties will be the same as the real gun case. Therefore, in the proposal of the National People’s Congress this year, Zhu Zhengfu proposed to re-examine the relevant gun identification standards.
In order to visit his son and complain about his case, Xiao Liu’s parents left their hometown in Sichuan and went to work in Fujian. Xiao Liu’s mother, Ms. Hu, said that they had been unable to contact the sellers in Taiwan Province after the incident. She learned this week that the Fujian Provincial High Court has filed a case review of Xiao Liu’s case.
Some media also quoted the relevant person in charge of the Fujian Provincial High Court to confirm this statement.